Gloversblog: Badger – five years on

If you scroll to the bottom of the Gloverscast homepage, you might notice three emojis. A badger, a pint of beer and a dragon. These represent the three men without whom this website and podcast may probably not exist, Martin ‘Badger’ Baker, ‘Huish’ Hugh Gleave and Jon ‘Taff’ Morgan, the founders of Ciderspace.

The recent passing of Hugh, who would undoubtedly be happy to be represented by a pint of beer (as long as it was a real ale), led to an outpouring of memories from many Yeovil Town fans young and old who recalled his role in establishing, filling and keeping going a resource which has been the mainstay of every Glovers’ fans since it first started in 1999.

12th October 2024 marks five years since we got the terrible news of the death of Badger, who the other two would not mind admitting was the driving force behind Ciderspace. His dedication to bringing news, match reports, maintaining mind-blowing records on the club’s history undoubtedly kept thousands of us in the know about the happenings at Huish Park.

Badger, Hugh and Taff were quite a trio. Badger worked night and day to keep Ciderspace updated and Hugh and Taff, who sadly passed in December 2010, brought the humour, razor-shap wit and fearlessness to take on the club’s hierachy in (almost unanimously) a constructive way, made them a crucial resource. It began with a mailing list – essentially a group email made up of people’s contributions which landed in your inbox every day – and progressed to a website.

You can listen to Hugh talk about the establishment of Ciderspace in an episode we recorded in October 2021 – click here to listen – and read about what it meant to one supporter, Seb White who went on to co-found the hugely popular football magazine, Mundial, here.

This blog is not an attempt to retell those stories, I am sure you will have your own memories of Ciderspace, its founders and much more. But, as we mark five years (where has that time gone?!) since the passing of Badger, we wanted to ensure we remember those who went before us.

For our part, the ‘Three Plebs’ who you hopefully allow to interrupt your thought patterns twice a week, to be taking up the reins from these founding fathers is a privilege. So I simply encourage you all to raise a glass of whatever you’re drinking today and toast the memory of Badger, Hugh and Taff – it’s how they would have wanted it.