Yeovil Town 1 Fulham 0 – Monday 15th November 1993
To celebrate the return to Yeovil Town of green and white stripes for the first time in almost 30 years, we’re taking a look back at when the striped shirts of Yeovil were enhancing their FA Cup reputation in the early 90’s.
After the move to Huish Park in 1990, Yeovil found themselves embarking on a number of FA Cup runs despite the turmoil off the pitch. In 1991/92, they beat Walsall 1-0 in a replay after drawing 1-1 at Huish Park. The following season saw the epic run to the third round, despatching League sides Torquay and Hereford before bowing out at home to an Ian Wright hat-trick against Arsenal.
This was possibly what tempted the Sky TV cameras to come to Huish Park for the First Round tie against Fulham in November 1993. Sky had taken over coverage of the newly re-branded Premier League along with some FA Cup ties in 1992, so they were still the new kids on the block. This would be the first time that Yeovil were shown live on television, in front of over 6,000 fans. Fulham were on their way down at the time, in Division Two (now League One), from which they were relegated at the end of the season to play in the bottom tier for the first time in their history. After three years in the basement division, they were purchased by Harrod’s owner Mohamed Al-Fayed who led them back up through the divisions, appointing Kevin Keegan as manager along the way and taking them back to the Premier League in 2001.
In a slightly turgid game low on chances, Andy Wallace popped up with an inspired solo goal to settle the tie in injury time. Besides Wallace, the team at that time contained such well-remembered players as Paul Wilson and Mickey Spencer. Yeovil’s player-manager at the time was Steve Rutter, although this would be one of his last games in charge as he stepped down at the end of the year and was replaced by the returning Brian Hall. Despite the success of a 4th placed finish and FA Cup tie against Arsenal in 1992/93, the squad was ageing and there was no money to replace them. The return of Brian Hall was not enough to turn the team’s fortunes around and the Glovers were relegated from the Conference in 1994/95.
Although his last games for Yeovil came at a difficult time for the club on and off the pitch, Andy Wallace would end his time as one of the club’s top scorers with 61 goals from 298 appearances, a few places below his team-mate Mickey Spencer, who with 104 goals from 281 appearances is still at No. 5 in the list of post-war goalscorers for Yeovil Town.