Match Report: Yeovil Town 1 FC Halifax Town 0

Venue: Huish Park
Saturday 26th November, 3pm kick-off

Conditions: Wet and blustery and got even wetter and windier as the game went on
Pitch: Slippy and slidey

Attendance: 2,123 (53 away supporters)

Scorers: Matt Worthington pen 43 (1-0)

Bookings:

Yeovil Town: Jamie Reckord 29, Matt Worthington 46, Grant Smith 89
FC Halifax Town: 

Sending off:

Yeovil Town: Matt Worthington 75 (two bookable offences)

Referee: Aaron Jackson

Yeovil Town (5-3-2):

Substitutes: Will Buse, Lawson D’Ath, Anthony Georgiou, Louis Britton, Malachi Linton (for Oluwabori 68).

FC Halifax Town: Johnson, Arthur, Stott, Senior, Golden, Cappello (for Dieseruvwe, 66), Summerfield, Gilmour, Cooke (for Warburton, 54), Spence, Harker.

Substitues: Minihan, Scott, Keane.

Match Report

A first half penalty from Matt Worthington secured a vital 1-0 win for Yeovil Town in horrendous conditions at Huish Park.

But the midfielder was at the centre of the action when he was red carded for a second bookable offence having been adjudged to have dived in the second half.

To say referee Aaron Jackson was not popular with the Huish Park crowd would be an understatement and, judging from the booking he received in injury time, Yeovil manager Mark Cooper was not too keen on him either.

The Glovers held on for the win with ten men for the final 15 minutes to pull five points clear of the National League drop zone.

First half

Mark Cooper named an unchanged line-up from the previous weekend’s 0-0 draw at Notts County albeit with on loan Peterborough United man Andrew Oluwabori and Matt Worthington playing further forward in support of striker Alex Fisher.

Neither side managed to get control of the ball in miserable conditions, and the game had a similar feel to the previous home game against Gateshead with Yeovil allowing the visitors to dominate possession.

The first chance fell to the visitors when towering striker Rob Harker on six minutes was found from a ball from the right-hand side, but he could not connect with the chance. If he had, Grant Smith in the Yeovil goal would have had his work cut out to keep him out.

On 13 minutes, there was a carbon copy with another move down the right seeing the ball break to striker Jamie Cooke who, like his team-mate Harker, should have done better with the chance. Having kept an impressive Notts County team quiet a week earlier, there was some uncharacteristically loose defending from Yeovil.

Quality was at a premium in the opening 20 minutes but where it existed for the home side unsurprisingly Oluwabori was involved, linking up well with Chiori Johnson down the right side. But, there was some early disgruntlement (is that a word?) from the home crowd with Yeovil struggling to get forward, who were regularly forced backwards by a Halifax side quick to apply pressure.

Mark Cooper is frantically waving his arms to get these players to go forwards and not back…..we need to get out of this backwards mentality!

— Debs Curtis (@Gloversgirl) November 26, 2022

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a game between the division’s two lowest scoring sides – 17 goals for the visitors and one fewer for their hosts – there was little in the way of chances as the game progressed towards half-time.

If there was going to be a goal, the chances were it was going to come from a mistake – and that’s exactly what happened two minutes before half-time. Owen Bevan was wrestled to the ground by Jamie Scott from a corner in a moment described as “absolutely idiocy” by our own Ian Perkins on BBC Somerset and referee Aaron Jackson pointed to the penalty spot.

With Alex Fisher having put a spot kick over the bar in the last match at Huish Park, midfielder Matt WORTHINGTON took the responsibility and hammered a well-struck penalty past Halifax keeper Sam Johnstone, who got a hand to it but could only push it in to the roof of the net.

Against the run of play, but difficult to feel too much sympathy when the visitors’ defenders had been warned for grappling inside the box seconds before……grappling inside the box.

Half time: Yeovil Town 1 FC Halifax Town 0

Second half

There were no immediate changes for either side as the second half got underway, but Mark Cooper will undoubtedly be looking for his side to show more going forward.

Playing with the wind in their favour after the break, the first chance of the second half fell to Halifax as midfielder Kian Spence was given space to unleash a well-struck shot which Grant Smith had to be called in to action to deny.

The visitors introduced former Glovers’ loanee Matt Warburton with nine minutes of the second half played, and it was his mistake which gave Oluwabori a chance to show his pace and get forward. Unfortunately, his ball in almost found Fisher who was put off by Chiori Johnson who ran across him when the top-scorer looked the more likely target.

Uncharacteristically sloppy play from Yeovil skipper Josh Staunton gifted the visitors possession on 65 minutes and Tyler Golden got away down the right to fire a decent effort in which Smith was equal to, and moments later Harker broke away to force another stop out of the Glovers’ number one.

Malachi Linton was introduced in to the fray on 68 minutes at the expense of Oluwabori, who had played in a deeper role than he had in the previous home game. The striker, who came off the bench with good effect in the previous two matches,

With 15 minutes to go, referee Jackson inexplicably showed a second yellow card (and a subsequent red) to Worthington who he adjudged to have dived in a tackle with Luke Summerfield. The response of the home crowd chanting “you don’t know what you’re doing” at the official goes entirely against Rule 1 of the Gloverscast. Appeal incoming?

The conditions which were not that pleasant to start with got steadily worse as the game progressed and you would not want to have been one of the 21 players on the pitch as Bevan underwent some lengthy treatment.

If you wanted something else to break Rule 1, Harvey Gilmour went down in the box with three minutes of the game remaining but referee Jackson gave nothing. If that’s not a foul and a penalty, it’s a booking, isn’t it? The Yeovil bench certainly asked that same question of the fourth official.

The questions of the officials from Cooper led to him going in to the book with two of six minutes of injury time played. Jackson waited until Fisher was fouled to blow up for a head injury from a Halifax player – which the official hadn’t bothered about until then.

Smith, who had got a booking for time-wasting, was the hero in the dying seconds making a great save to deny Gilmour with just seconds of the game remaining, but pushed it as far as Festus Arthurs who blazed his chance over.

But, Yeovil Town held on to secure another valuable three points.

Full time:  Yeovil Town 1 FC Halifax Town 0