The Glovers are back in action following their FA Trophy exit and it’s back to League matters with an away day at Chippenham Town.
This is a Huish Park derby… of sorts, the home side’s ground is known as Hardenhuish Park… we can only assume for the reverse leg, we’ll change our stadium’s name to Softenhuish Park… might as well.
On Monday night, Maidstone United cut the gap at the top to just eight points with a win over play-off contenders Chelmsford City, and with others in the chasing pack including Aveley, Bath City and Hampton & Richmond all playing away from home on this midweek round of games, it could be an important night to get three points.
Chippenham needed penalties to get past Southern League South side Basingstoke Town in their FA Trophy clash at the weekend, Craig Fasanmade’s 100th minute equaliser sparing their blushes in normal time – he also took, and scored a spot kick.
The Chips (I assume they’re nicknamed ‘The Chips’ because, why wouldn’t they be?) are actually on something of an unbeaten league run though, with a 2-2 draw against Chemlsford , home wins vs Farnborough and Eastbourne all in November.
Northern Irishman Matt McClure tops their goal scoring charts.
Picture courtesy of Mike Kunz.
Yeovil Team News
The main headline here is that Jordan Young, who signed for Yeovil on a two-and-a-half year contract from Chippenham in January (yes, feels longer ago, doesn’t it?), is missing from the side through suspension. His fifth yellow card of the season means he misses one game, which just so happens to be against his former side.
This week represents the final full week of games before the ‘5 Yellow Card Cut Off’ so Charlie Cooper, Matt Worthington and Rhys Murphy can keep themselves out of trouble for a week (which includes the weekend’s trip to Welling United), we won’t have to worry about the accumulation of yellows until they get to 10.
It seems highly unlikely that Jake Wannell will be risked following his injury seven days ago, Duncan Idehen will likely make his first league start since signing on loan from Bristol City.
Mark Cooper pointed to a couple of niggles among some of the players he rested for last weekend’s FA Trophy exit at Torquay United when he spoke to Three Valleys Radio‘s Football Bloody Hell podcast on Monday night.
The manager said: “Michael Smith is 35 and has been arguably one of our best players and he covers 12 kilometres every game, he started to feel a little bit of tightness in his hamstring and it made no sense for him to play another game and risk losing him for six weeks.
“Morgan Williams has played the last three games with a tight hamstring and hyper-extended his knee against Torquay in the league game. Jake Wannell tweaked his hamstring (against Farnborough) and was not fit. Matthew Worthington and a tight something and has played almost every minute of every game.
“Jordan Stevens pulled his hamstring, Frank Nouble and Rhys Murphy have been on fire, so we had to freshen it up and I make no apologies for that, it was the right thing to do. Even if we had won the game it would have been the right thing to do.”
Long(er)-term injury victims defender Jamie Sendles-White (Achilles) and midfielder Stevens (hamstring) are both certain to not feature tonight.
Chippenham Team News
The Chips (we’re going with that) are reporting a long and winding injury list with winger Alex Bray the latest to suffer with a knock – he could be missing. They also have concerns over; midfielders Tom Owen-Evans, Aaron Amadi-Holloway, Tyreke Johnson and Will King, plus striker Owen Windsor who have all struggled to maintain a spot in the side of late.
A quick look at the FA’s suspension list, experienced defender Eddie Jones is listed as serving a one-match ban for this game too.
Keep an eye out for a feisty dug out too, both manager Gary Horgan and assistant Matt Coupe are both due to serve suspensions of their own at the weekend.
As an aside, the home team’s Goalkeeper, Will Henry is listed as one of the smaller ‘keepers in the league… I do hope we spot him off his line at some point and have been practicing our long range efforts… hopefully someone tries…. CHIPPIN’HIM…..
I’ll get my coat…..