Match Report: Dorking Wanderers 1 Yeovil Town 1
Venue: Meadowbank
Tuesday October 4th, 7.45pm kick-off
Conditions: Dry but a little chilly
Pitch: Plastic
Attendance: 1,525 (no away attendance given, but something like 150)
Scorers: Sam Pearson 3 (1-0), Jack Muitt 53 (1-1)
Bookings:
Yeovil Town: Chiori Johnson 29, Josh Staunton 87
Dorking Wanderers: Bobby-Joe Taylor 40
Referee: Matthew Russell
Yeovil Town : (3-4-3)
Grant Smith
Owen Bevan Josh Staunton Max Hunt
Morgan Williams Matt Worthington Lawson D’Ath (Sam Perry 80) Chiori Johnson (Alex Fisher 75)
Sam Pearson Malachi Linton Will Dawes (Charlie Wakefield 55)
Substitutes (not used): Oliver Haste, Jake Scrimshaw.
Dorking Wanderers: Lincoln, Fuller, Gallagher, B. Taylor, McManus (for Jebb, 75), J.Taylor, McShane, Muitt (for Mekki, 66), Bowerman, Ottaway, Seager (for Egan, 59). Substitutes (not used): El-Abd, Quick.
Match Report
This game, which Yeovil Town’s players and management has described as “must win”, ended in the seventh draw of the season as the Glovers slid in to the National League drop zone.
Having taken an early lead through Sam Pearson, the visitors reverted to type defending against a Dorking side more than happy to press their advantage and draw level early in the second half through Jimmy Muitt’s goal.
With Yeovil chairman and owner Scott Priestnall watching on from the stands at Meadowbank, the game concluded with angry chants directed at him at the final whistle.
Here’s how Dave saw another night filled with the F word…..
First half
Having dominated the opening exchanges, a ball forward found Sam PEARSON bursting through to hold off his marker and slam a powerful effort so far in to the corner it stuck there.
Far from looking like the side out of form against their in-form opponents, it was the visitors asking the questions.
But, after a muted speech start, Dorking began to work their way in to the game with some hectic defending from the Glovers to clear a barrage of balls in to the box.
On 18 minutes, Grant Smith was forced in to a point blank save from Grant Smith to deny Harry Ottaway followed by a scramble to clear
Even more worryingly, a slip on the artificial surface saw Smith go down for treatment. Cue a terrace discussion about why we won’t have a keeper on the bench.
Luckily the keeper stayed on and on 23 minutes he got down smartly to turn an effort from Ryan Seager. Yep, that Ryan Seager.
Possession was undoubtedly in favour of the home side (67% in favour of the hosts according to Statman Ben) with the early pressure applied by Chris Hargreaves’ side switching to playing on the break. I mean, when has sitting back ever failed us before, right?
However, for all their possession, it took until the 41st minute for Dorking to create a meaningful chance – and they did it twice in a matter of seconds.
First was a speculative high ball from the right side seemed like it was going out of play, only to come back off the bar and bounce away and eventually land to Seager whose effort was turned aside by Smith.
Two minutes later it was Smith to the rescue again, this time saving with his legs from a point blank effort header from Ottaway.
The half-time whistle was met by a sigh of relief from the away support who began a period of silent prayer that Smith would return after the break.
Half time: Dorking Wanderers 0 Yeovil Town 1
Second half
The artificial surface at Meadowbank certainly got some questioning looks from the Yeovil players in the first half and seven minutes after the restart it committed a heinous foul to deny a good break forward from Dawes, who stumbled and fell.
The second half started in a similar fashion to how the first half ended with the home sides on the front foot and the visitors on the back foot. The result was inevitable and on 53 minutes Dorking drew level.
More last ditch defending saw the ball pinball around inside the area and it was Jimmy MUITT who turned it home.
The instant response was to replace Dawes with Charlie Wakefield and the substitute almost immediately found Worthington who wasted his opportunity to test the keeper.
That seemed to spark a lacklustre Yeovil who started to venture forward a little more, but a couple of speculative Malachi Linton efforts were all we had to show for it.
Dorking seemed happy to sit back and let us enjoyed possession without any cutting edge.
It took until the 71st minute to force Dorking keeper Dan Lincoln in to a save. Wakefield’s cross was met by the head of Pearson who effort was turned over.
But that was it as far as meaningful chances for the visitors went as chairman and owner Scott Priestnall, watching from the stand at Meadowbank alongside club ‘volunteer’ Martyn Starnes, was the target of chants calling for him to go from a section of the away support.
The hosts, who were playing nine tiers lower than the Glovers less than a decade ago, continued to press for a winner with substitute Adam Mekki shot wide and Bobby Joe Taylor bent a free-kick just over the bar.
As the game crept towards the final whistle, a group of supporters approached the stand to voice their displeasure at Priestnall, who sat impassive before departing with a member of club security at the full-time whistle.
The response to the players was mixed with applause for some – not least Smith, without whom the hosts would have been out of sight by half-time – but angry words for others including some directed at manager, Chris Hargreaves.
Drawing a must win game is truly peak Yeovil.
Full time: Dorking Wanderers 1 Yeovil Town 1
Team News: Dorking Wanderers (away)
Chris Hargreaves has rung the changes as Yeovil Town seem to pick up only their second win of the National League season at Dorking Wanderers tonight (7.45pm kick-off).
Max Hunt, Chiori Johnson and Malachi Linton all return to the starting XI and there is a debut for Will Dawes, signed from Stratford Town for an undisclosed five-figure fee.
The formation appears to be a 3-4-3 with Linton up front alongside Dawes and Sam Pearson, whilst Ollie Haste, recalled from his loan spell at Truro City, is named on the bench.
Yeovil Town : (3-4-3)
Grant Smith
Owen Bevan Josh Staunton Max Hunt
Chiori Johnson Matt Worthington Lawson D’Ath Morgan Williams
Sam Pearson Malachi Linton Will Dawes
Substitutes: Ollie Haste, Sam Perry,Charlie Wakefield, Jake Scrimshaw, Alex Fisher
Somerset derby in the Cup
Yeovil Town have been given a Somerset derby home draw against Taunton Town in the Fourth Qualifying Round of the FA Cup.
The tie will be played at Huish Park on Saturday 15th October with £9,375 of prize money for the winners and £3,125 for the losers.
The local rivals met in the competition’s Second Qualifying Round back in 1996 with the first game at Huish Park finishing goalless before Graham Roberts’ Glovers won 5-3 in a replay at Wordsworth Drive, with violence flaring at the final whistle and Roberts ending up in front of local magistrates a few weeks later.
Last season saw the Glovers draw local rivals W*ymouth in last year’s competition with a 1-1 draw in Somerset in the first game followed by a penalty shoot-out win on an unforgettable night on the other side of the border.
Sport England: No plans for loans to be written off
Last month, we published a blog, The Priestnall Tapes – Five Months On – which looked back at words spoke by Yeovil Town owner and chairman Scott Priestnall to supporters in April and reviewed where his promises had got to in the months that had passed.
Among the topics we covered were the issue of the almost £1m (£998,538, to be precise) in loans the club took out from Sport England to help the club survive the COVID-19 pandemic – yes, that’s on top of the sale of the club’s stadium, surrounding land, the £50,000 raised by supporters in the Crowdfunder and furlough payments the club took during the period.
For your recollection, here’s what that blog said about the loans from the Sport Survival Package:
Sport England loans
Scott said: “We’ve taken not as much as some other clubs and only what we needed and we have been promised as a league by the Sports Minister that over the next four years, he is working towards getting those loans written off.”
What’s happened since? The Sports Minister, Nigel Huddlestone, is the same man who promised Scott and his fellow club owners he would be working towards getting the almost £1m which we have borrowed written off. We’ve got in contact with the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to ask how the Minister is getting on – but, to be fair to the department, they’ve been in charge of arrangements for The Queen’s funeral in recent weeks. We’ll let you know if we hear anything…….
Now, we’re people of our word and far be it from us to promise something and not deliver upon it, so here’s the response we’ve had back from the DCMS today:
- The terms of the loan repayment remain the same as when it was provided in early 2021. We expect every loan recipient to fulfil the terms of their loan.Loans were provided to beneficiaries of the Sport Survival Package at a low interest rate, with a flexible approach to loan terms and repayment holidays.
- Sport England is in regular contact with every loan recipient and we will continue to work closely with them to understand each individual organisations’ circumstances. If an organisation is concerned about its ability to meet repayments, we would encourage them to contact their relationship manager in the first instance as soon as possible.
- We do not comment on the specifics of individual Sports Survival Package cases given their commercial sensitivity.
The other thing to correct is that on the day we published The Priestnall Tapes – Five Months On blog, Nigel Huddlestone was replaced as Sports Minister by Stuart Andrew. Either way, there seems no appetite from the DCMS to cancel the loans or turn them in to grants.
Gloverscast #198 – “Give me deep fried wing-backs”
Ian and Ben grill Dave after Yeovil’s 1-0 defeat to Southend on Saturday, have a moan and we take your questions.
Thanks for listening!
Toure suspension confirmed
The Football Association has confirmed the three-match ban that faces Glovers’ forward Gime Toure following his red card in the 1-0 defeat at Southend United.
His dissmissal has been listed as “Kicking – Violent Conduct” and comes under Law 12
After the match, Chris Hargreaves said the front man would not only have to suffer missing out for a few games but would also be paying in the way of a fine for his misdemeanour.
As it stands, the red card applies to all first-team fixtures, so he will miss games against Dorking Wanderers on Tuesday night, Solihull Moors at home next weekend and and the FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round Fixture slated for the weekend of October 15th.
He’ll be available again for the away game at Oldham Athletic on October 22nd
Five Conclusions: Southend United 1 Yeovil Town 0
The hunt for Yeovil Town’s second win of the National League season goes on after a 1-0 defeat away at Southend United in a match which saw the Glovers play 73 minutes with ten men following the first half dismissal of Gime Toure.
The result puts them clear of the National League drop zone by goal difference alone with 11 matches of Chris Hargreaves’ tenure as manager now played.
Dave gives his opinions on what he saw from the away end at Root’s Hall.
Southend were not a good team either. I’m not sure if this one ranks as a positive or a negative conclusion, but the fact that our opponents were unable to muster more than a single goal against us with ten men speaks volumes. For the 17 minutes that we had the full complement on the pitch, we caused them problems and looked like causing them more.
I, like the other 80 supporters in the away end, saw nothing of the incident which led to Gime Toure’s red card but if that “moment of madness” had not happened, we threatened to be a slightly above average team against an average one. Is that a positive or a negative dressed up as a positive? You decide.
The sock count will be increasing. I’m going to try and get a couple of positives in at the beginning here, because there was effort from the team – socks well and truly worn out. I’ll defer judgement on Gime Toure’s red, but if he kicked out at Kacper Lopata then he landed his team-mates well and truly in it. There was huge frustration that for the first half minutes which followed the 17th minute dismissal we defended deeper and deeper until the inevitable happened and Jake Hyde popped up with the eventual winner, but there was some effort mostly in the final 20 minutes. To the extent you would not believe we had a one man deficit at some points.
Against any other player, is that a foul? CRASH! Yes, that’s the sound of Rule 1 of the Gloverscast being shattered on the floor, but I have to talk about at least one decision made by referee Sam Mulhall. No, I don’t mean the sending off because he (like me!) completely missed that and was informed by his assistant. On 32 minutes, Josh Staunton beats Southend keeper Collin Andeng-Ndi (who looked shaky all match) to a corner to head home, the keeper goes sprawling on his back waving his hands and the official chalks the goal off for a foul. Against any other player on the pitch, is that a foul? To me, no, it’s simply a player wanting the ball more.
You can’t have ten hard luck stories. As I walked out of Root’s Hall without acknowledging the efforts of the Yeovil side (I had a train to catch!), I could almost hear the post-match interviews – socks worked off, commitments to putting it right on Tuesday night at Dorking and the same hard luck stories we’ve heard so often. The fact is, you can’t have ten hard luck stories, we’ve won one of our 11 matches so far this season afterall. The simple fact is performances have not been good enough and no about of effort and desire alone is going to fix that. These things are the minimum we expect, but they are not enough to earn three points on their own. There’s enough quality there, there’s no obvious deadwood like we had last season (if you tell me Reuben Reid scored a hat-trick for Weston-super-Mare this weekend, you’re only reinforcing my point) but the fact is they’re not performing at the moment and that’s down to more than effort.
What else did we think was going to happen? Don’t get me wrong, I like Chris Hargreaves, he seems a nice guy and obviously someone who has a good pedigree as a coach. But Darren Sarll is showing at Woking what he is capable of when he’s not got a hand tied behind his back (whether he consistently does that remains to be seen) and the answer to our demise seems simple. We’ve got a management team who are trying to assemble a team capable of challenging with a budget completely inadequate for the task with a hand tied behind their back and a chain around one foot. The club is rudderless bordering on delusional with none of the long-term vision or concrete framework we were promised by its leadership. If this is the alternative to a takeover bid from a consortium which it is claimed had no money, I think I would’ve taken my chances with them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nothing changes until everything changes and right now that feels a million miles away.
Staunton: Dorking game is “absolutely” a must win
Yeovil Town skipper Josh Staunton has said that Tuesday night’s game at Dorking Wanderers is a “must win” following the Glovers’ 1-0 defeat to Southend United.
A clearly emotional and almost angry skipper spoke to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins following the game.
“We can’t keep making excuses and feeling sorry for ourselves, it’s times like this we have to earn your stripes as a Yeovil player. Anyone who was here to day can tell those on the pitch gave their all for the club, but we have to everything right to get it right by Tuesday.
“There’s no point dressing over it, we need a win, we needed a win today, we need a win even more now because the games are ticking by. We need an ugly win, it doesn’t matter how we get it really, performances have been okay, but they don’t bring us results.”
When asked if the team had discussed if the midweek trip to Dorking represented a ‘must win‘, the response was clear: “Absolutely.”
“Anyone who doesn’t know that in is kidding themselves a bit. We know today was a big go for us and this was an important week for us. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb, shot ourselves in the foot (with the dismissal of striker Gime Toure after 17 minutes) and we can’t let it be a hangover for Tuesday and an excuse for Tuesday. It’s a case of brushing this off and getting right for Tuesday whatever way we have to do it.
“We have got to start turning performances into results, it’s as simple as that. We’ve had some good home performances and they’ve come to one point. We’ve got to start – I don’t know, I’m a bit emotionally driven at the moment – I’m struggling to find excuses for it, we need to go and get a win.”
Staunton had a goal ruled out shortly after his side had been reduced to ten men, something which he says he hasn’t had an explanation about.
“As is the way these days, the goalkeeper tried catching… well, I don’t know what the goalie was trying to do. I just jumped up and headed it, he came flying into the back of me, I was pretty stationary, my arms were down and no explanation given, just ‘it’s a foul’.
“When things are against you, it seems things really are against you, those things swing matches. It would have been a real positive swing on going down to ten, but as seems to be the way the goalies are protected.”
The captain was happy to express he fr****tion (we’ve banned that word) at both the incident which saw Gime Toure sent off and the Southend goal, calling them both key moment which cost the side a better result.
“We were under the cosh a bit, they were committing men and the bloke had an unopposed header in the box, as seems to be the way at the moment. He’s headed it into the far corner, it was a decent header to be fair to him, but again it’s a momentary lapse in concentration which has cost us all three today.”
The second half of the game, saw a rise in effort to make up for the one man, and one goal deficit, but it was not enough.
“One thing you’ll never question with this group is the resiliance, the application and the attitude, everyone had a go today and those boys are on their absolute last legs out there… when you go down to ten against a decent footballing team, you are doing a hell of a lot of running, at the back we were leaving ourselves man-v-man an awful lot to try and get the goal.”
Yeovil Town’s “must win” game on Tuesday kicks off at 7:45pm at Dorking Wanderers.