Latest Yeovil Town News (Page 92)

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A thunderbolt from Brett McGavin, and a tidy tap in from Finn Cousin-Dawson meant it was a return to victory for Yeovil, as they defeated Woking on their travels in a 2-0 win. Let’s see what else happened across the weekend, in not only the National League, but the FA Cup for National League sides too.

National League action starts with new league leaders York City, as they registered another big home win, defeating 10 man Maidenhead United in a 6-2 thumping, Ollie Pearce grabbing a brace to send the hosts top via goal difference. Life post-Angelo Harrop for Braintree Town started with a competitive 2-2 draw against Gateshead, while there were two 2-0 wins for Southend United and Sutton United against FC Halifax Town and AFC Fylde respectively.

There were two more draws, both goalless, as Hartlepool United held Barnet, and the two basement sides, Ebbsfleet United and Boston United finished even.

Into the FA Cup, and there were some close battles for the National League representatives – we begin with a shock, as Dagenham & Redbridge put on an impressive performance in a 2-1 win over League Two side AFC Wimbledon. It was heartbreak for Oldham Athletic, as two extremely late goals for League One’s Leyton Orient condemned the visitors to a 2nd Round exit, the goals coming in the 99th minute of normal time, and the 121st minute in extra time.

Solihull Moors were once again on the losing side in a replay of last season’s playoff final, as they lost 2-1 at home against League Two’s Bromley. Tamworth became the second, and final side from the National League to qualify for Round Three, as they defeated League One side Burton Albion on penalties to land in the bowl for the draw on Monday night, while in the pre-lunch kickoff on Saturday, Wealdstone lost 2-0 at home to League One leaders Wycombe Wanderers.

 

National League results – in full

Braintree Town 2-2 Gateshead
Ebbsfleet United 0-0 Boston United
FC Halifax Town 0-2 Southend United
Hartlepool United 0-0 Barnet
Sutton United 2-0 AFC Fylde
Woking 0-2 Yeovil Town
York City 6-2 Maidenhead United

FA Cup 2nd Round results (NL teams in bold)

Wealdstone 0-2 Wycombe Wanderers
Leyton Orient 2-1 Oldham Athletic
AFC Wimbledon 1-2 Dagenham & Redbridge
Burton Albion 1-1 Tamworth (Tamworth win 4-3 on pens)
Solihull Moors 1-2 Bromley
National League table

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Whilst the Glovers were winning at Woking, the loanees were out and about getting some game time in.

Firstly, defender Jordan Thomas scored his first goal as a Torquay United player, they gave Enfield Town a good hiding in the National League South and Thomas got the ball rolling with the Gulls’ first goal.

Torquay sit third in the table with only Truro City and Weston-super-Mare above them… they really should name that the National League South-West.

Although, at the other end, managerless W*ymouth were beaten 1-0 at home by Tonbridge Angels.

A single Jeremy Santos goal the difference there. Will Buse was between the sticks and by all accounts, did very little wrong.

The seagull botherers, who travel to Huish Park for an FA Trophy third round tie on Saturday, now sit second-from-bottom of the tale without a manager following the dismissal of Mark Moseley during the week.

Young defender Jacob Shore was an unused sub for Tavistock in Southern League Division One South in a 3-2 win over Ciderford Town but he did get the full 90 minutes in a midweek victory over Bashley.

Under-18s’ midfielder Sol Padmore was in Bridport’s starting line-up, but they fell to defeat to Newquay AFC in the South West Peninsula League (East).

Sherborne Town lost 3-2 to Hamble FC. Team news is sparse for this one, it’s unlikely that Under-18s’ captain Corey Koerner would have been involved due to his England Colleges Debut on Friday, we’ll update this article if we spot any involvement for Josh Haskett.

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It wasn’t pretty, but it was three points: The losing run is over and it didn’t really matter how it happened. This was a match which lacked a lot of quality (except McGavin’s goal, see below) but the mission was three points and that’s all it needed to be. There was a weird atmosphere in the ground, particularly for the second half. Kingfield is a terrible away end/side to get any kind of atmosphere and there wasn’t much to get too many pulses racing. Job done.

Morgan Williams cannot believe what he’s just seen from Magic McGavin.

What a showreel Brett McGavin has: I thought his free-kick at Boston United at the end of August was nailed on for Goal of the Season, but Brett McGavin has given himself competition with that absolute rocket. The cross from James Plant went so high I think it may have been touched by God before it reached his boot. That is some serious technique. Take a bow.

I hadn’t realised how much we missed Jake Wannell: Mark Cooper made reference to how our left-sided defender (that’s Jake Wannell) is instrumental to setting off attacks, and that was obvious against Woking. I don’t think Ollie Wright ever looked troubled with the exception of when Morgan Williams bailed him out with a header off the line when he got caught out of position. Defensively I didn’t feel we missed Wannell today, Woking can’t finish their dinner at the moment, but his role in getting us moving forward was evident.

Pedro Borges was in fine form. Picture courtesy of Gary Brown.

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Shooter McGavin lets fly. Pic Gary Brown

Brett McGavin scored as good a volley as you’ll ever see, as Yeovil ran out 2-0 winners at Woking. 

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman, The Shooter said his opening strike was ‘up there’ in the goal rankings.

He said: “It’s up there. Scoring goals is always a good feeling. But ones like that, yeah, you do have to take them in, because they’re special. I was saying on the last interview, I’ve just done, when it goes that high, you just have to concentrate on getting a good contact, and thankfully, it’s gone in the back of the net. There was a moment where I thought maybe that I can’t get there. But once I made the decision to go to the ball, there was only one thing on the mind. And like I said, just got concentrate on the strike. And thankfully, it went in.”

The midfielder echoed the thoughts of his manager, in that he felt the team could probably perform better. He said: “No matter how Woking are doing in the league it’s always a tough away fixture. We could probably perform better, but as soon as they went down to 10 men, we knew that we should come away with three points, and we done enough to get them today.

“We try to gain control as early as possible. And I think us gaining control then caused the red card because they were frustrated. So, yeah, gaining control was huge for us today.”

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Yeovil returned to winning ways this afternoon with a 2-0 win on the road at Woking. A thronker from Brett McGavin and a tap in from Finn Cousin-Dawson was enough against the ten-man Cardinals.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the match, Mark Cooper said his side needed the win.

“[I’m] Delighted with the result, not so much the performance, but I understand, because we’re a bit edgy. We lost three games in a week and put ourselves under a bit of pressure. And it was just about getting a win to get us off and running again, to restore a bit of confidence.

“We were competent today. We weren’t overly effective in the last third, but we had good chances as well to win the game. But, today was just about three points. There’s loads of things we did wrong, but we had a right go. We were really organised and never really looked in danger of losing the game.

“I thought we could have been quicker with the ball, but listen, it’s tough to play against 10 men. It’s just about winning the game and we managed to do that.”

Brett McGavin’s volley got the Glovers off the mark after Jack Stretton received a red card for an elbow on Cousin-Dawson and Cooper felt his team needed some magic: “We needed a bit of magic. Once they went to 10 men, they get bodies back and we needed just a bit of magic to get us going. Brett supplied us with that. He’s scored some cracking goals this year, and that was another.”

Matt Worthington returned off the bench after picking up an injury at Tamworth and Cooper was happy to see some squad depth return.

“Because of last week, it’s been a little bit frustrating for everyone with the sendings off, and it’s really rocked to us in terms of not being able to get balanced team out. So hopefully that gives us a bit of a G up now. We’re close to getting Wannell back, Dom back, Worthy, back on the pitch today. So we’re close to getting a bit of depth back to the squad.” 

Ed James was left out of the side after his debut on Wednesday, but the manager confirmed he’d be in contention for the FA Trophy clash with W*ymouth.

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Yeovil Town got back to winning ways with a comfortable 2-0 victory against ten man Woking at the Kingfield.

The home side were reduced to ten men after just 17 minutes when Jack Stretton was shown red for an off-the-ball incident which was apparently an elbow on Finn Cousin-Dawson albeit not seen by pretty much everyone inside the ground.

The Glovers took the lead through another spectacular finish from Brett McGavin to volley home a James Plant cross just after the half-hour mark, and the game was wrapped up when Cousin-Dawson arrived at the back post to turn home a Frank Nouble centre with 79 minutes gone.

Not one for the ages, but three points, a clean sheet and two goals. The losing run is over and bring on the W*ymouth next weekend.

First half

With no Michael Smith in the starting XI, it was Pedro Borges and James Plant as wing-backs either side of a back three which included Finn Cousins-Dawson following his return from a one-match suspension.

Frank Nouble had the game’s first opportunity warming the palms of Woking keeper Will Jaaskelinen after just four minutes and then on ten minutes Morgan Williams had an effort blocked from a corner.

But the first meaningful chance of the game came after 12 minutes Aaron Jarvis was slipped in on the left side of the box, but his effort was well blocked by Jaaskelinen. One of those you really have to stick away.
 
Fuce me minutes later came a bizarre moment. The referee showed the hosts’ Jack Stretton a red card seemingly out of nowhere following a long conversation with his fourth official. The consensus is it was for an elbow on Cousin-Dawson, but neither sets of players or supporters saw anything. Tellingly Stretton seemed to accept his fate with little complaint.
 
On 20 minutes, there was a scare when Ollie Wright came to the edge of his box to meet Matt Ward, lost the ball and was lobbed. Fortunately, Williams had spotted the danger and was back on the line to clear.
 
On 25 minutes, a break down the left by Borges’ driving run down the right was making its way towards Nouble, only for Woking’s Dion Kelly-Evans to intervene.
 

But on 31 minutes the deadlock was broken in some style. Plant got a ball in from the right, dropping from the heavens, Brett McGAVIN met it with a sweetly struck thumping volley. 

Despite the one-man advantage, it was far from a one-sided encounter with Woking showing more fight than their league position would suggest their performances up until now have included.

They had the ball in the net three minutes in to first half injury time when former Yeovil loanee Jamie Andrews turned a ball in, but the offside flag had already been raised for some time before it hit the back of the net.

Half time: Woking 0 Yeovil Town 1

Second half

McGavin had the first chance of the second half when his free-kick, awarded for the most common thing at Kingfield on Saturday, a foul on Plant. It went just wide of the left-hand post.
 
The opening 10 minutes were played in almost an eerie silence, so much so that Cousin-Dawson tried to liven things up attempting to lob Jaaskelinen from 20 yards. The keeper got a hand to it to see it out for a corner.
 
 
On 64 minutes, Josh Sims replaced Kofi Shaw with ex-Glovers’ midfielder Dale Gorman coming on for the home side. It took Gorman six minutes to get a booking for mouthing off to the referee.
 
To be honest, that was as exciting as it got for another 15 minutes until the second goal went in. A great ball fantastic ball in from Nouble in from the right and Finn COUSIN-DAWSON arrived at the back post to turn it home.
 
With the points all but secure, Mark Cooper made a couple of substitutions with Dylan Morgan and the returning Matt Worthington coming on. 
Aside from the goal for Cousin-Dawson, the second half was a thoroughly forgettable affair, but who cares, right? Three points and back to winning ways.
 

Full time: Woking 0 Yeovil Town 2

Match Details

Venue: Kingfield
Date: Saturday 30th November 2024 – 3:00pm kick-off

Competition: National League Premier Division

Scorers: Brett McGavin 31 (1-0), Finn Cousin-Dawson 79 (2-0)

Pitch:  Heavy
Conditions: Dry and calm 

Attendance: 2,911 (766 away supporters)

Bookings:
Woking: Cian Harries 43, Dale Gorman 70
Yeovil Town: James Plant 36, Morgan Williams 70

Sendings off:
Woking: Jack Stretton 17

Referee: Aaron Farmer

Yeovil Town (3-4-2-1)

Substitutes: Josh Sims (for Kofi Shaw, 64), Dylan Morgan (for Aaron Jarvis, 83), Matt Worthington (for Brett McGavin, 88), Harvey Greenslade (for Frank Nouble, 90+4), Ed James (not used), Sonny Blu Lo-Everton (not used), Matt Gould (not used).

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Michael Smith is missing from the Yeovil Town line-up for today’s trip to Woking (3pm kick-off)

Finn Cousin-Dawson returns for in a back three alongside Morgan Williams and Alex Whittle.

Captain Matt Worthington returns among the Glovers’ substitutes.