Goalkeeper Aidan Stone said the potential of helping Yeovil Town back in to the Football League is what attracted him to the club.
The stopper, who was part of the Port Vale side which won promotion out of League Two in the 2021-22 season, arrived at Huish Park at the start of the month and replaced loanee Ollie Wright following the youngsters return to Southampton.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah about his start to life in Somerset ahead of this weekend’s trip to Maidenhead United, he said: “It has been brilliant, I have hit the ground running with games coming thick and fast. To be straight in to the team is a good thing because every player wants to play games. Towards the end of the transfer window my agent gave me a call to say the Gaffer (Mark Cooper) had expressed his interest and, once we had a conversation, it was something I wanted to get sorted. I have moved my family down South last year, so being closer to home was a priority. I always remember this club being in the Football League and players I know spoke highly of the club, so it was that which made me interested. I wanted to be part of the journey of taking the club back in to the League.
“It has been good so far. It is always hard coming in to a team midway through a season, but the boys have been brilliant. Jake Wannell and I share a car and it is has been good to make a relationship there. We are chatting about the club, different formations and everything to do with football.”
Asked about his early experiences of playing at Huish Park, the 25-year-old said: “It is an atmosphere which can grow, but that is down to our performances. I like to think that if we can put in performances like we did (in the home win over Tamworth) on Tuesday night, the support will only continue to get better. The club got promoted last year and you would snatch your hand off for a mid-table finish, but we do not want to settle for that. We are better than that, there’s a great group of players there with a lot of ability. It is about using the momentum, when I was at Port Vale I think we were 12th and went on an amazing run and ended up getting promoted, so you never know what can happen in football. I think if we can be in and around the play-offs, that would be an amazing achievement.”
The Glovers travel to Berkshire this weekend on the back of a 2-1 home win over Tamworth on Tuesday night, a match which saw them come from 1-0 down at half-time to claim their first victory in more than two months.
Stone echoed the words of his manager Mark Cooper saying that the victory had to set the benchmark for the club’s remaining matches in the National League Premier Division.
He said: “It is always important to get a win whether you are in good form or the run of form we were in before I joined. What is important is whether we can build on it and take that momentum in to the remaining 15 games and finish the season strongly. If we continue to use the momentum and togetherness we showed on Tuesday night and we will see where it takes us. At half-time we spoke about getting forward and getting shots off, but we knew that eventually there would be balls coming in on top of us and it was how we dealt with that. In previous games we had not been as good, but on Tuesday night we were top class. Now we need to show that every single game, that has to be the benchmark. We have shown we can do it for 45 minutes at least, but it has to for 90 minutes going forward.
“I played against Maidenhead (during a loan spell) at Boston earlier in the season. They manage to find the form to get out of trouble every season, so it will be a tough game for us, but if we show what we showed in the second half the other night (against Tamworth) I think it is going to lead to a positive result for us.”