Yeovil Town penalty hero Jed Ward has said he had done his homework on Maidstone United’s spot kick record ahead of today’s FA Trophy win at Huish Park.
The on loan Bristol Rovers’ goalkeeper had information from the club’s analyst Sam Curry about his opponents’ penalty takers which paid dividends as he saved two spot kicks in a 4-2 shoot-out win to book their place in the fourth round.
Speaking to BBC Somerset reporter Mark Stillman after the game, Ward said: “I said to the lads said I will definitely save one. But as much as I saved two penalties, they have scored four, so all in all we are in the next round. I had my water bottle, so I made sure that I had that ready this morning and credit to Sam (Curry, the club’s analyst), he sends me a big .pdf of all the penalties and it is down to me to choose where they are going to go – and I was correct twice today.”
The Glovers looked to have sealed the win in normal time when on loan midfielder Josh Tobin, signed from League Two side Bromley during the week, scored in the 89th minute, but then a defensive lapse allowed the visitors’ substitute Hamzad Kargbo to equalise two minutes in to second half stoppage time and force the shoot-out.
Ward said: “We want to dominate the ball every game, that is what we want to be. I think we could have threatened more in the final third, but a win is a win however we do it. That is what we want to be, we want to be a group of winners. It is one of the few games this season where I did not feel I had much of an effect on the game and that is credit to the lads in front of me, they prevented balls coming in to the box and me having to make saves. Unfortunately the last couple of minutes we conceded the goal, but we never thought the game was done.
“They do not concede many goals so we did well to get the goal we did and we were gutted to concede one late, that is something we are going to have to work on as a group. We have conceded too many late goals this season, but you can see things are turning. The train is ready to go.”
Hoping people at the club see this… if they are starting to look at kit designs for next season, hopefully they can rethink the club badge. Something with significant thought and effort put into it, that will actually mean something to people like the original badge. At the very least, put an Achieve by Unity banner under the current design.
And make sure there’s enough contrast between the background and Numbers/Letters used on player shirts, or there’s no hope of seeing what it says!
Take action like that… and any opinion polls about the club’s image might start to be a bit more positive!