Yeovil introduced their new logo this season.  It wasn’t without controversy – One supporter wrote: “That badge looks like it took 2 minutes to make by a GCSE student.”  Others compared it with Leeds Utd’s failed rebrand.  The old logo is below.

Nailsworth to Yeovil is about 86 miles by road that will take around an hour and 50 minutes via the M5.  More scenic cross-country routes will be shorter in distance but will take a little longer.

By Supporters Coach – This is by far the cheapest and easiest way to travel.  For the rest of this season away travel is £5 per person for everybody.  Away travel is subsidised by FGR and the Supporters Club.  For full details go to Away Travel Offer – Remaining games (24/25) | WE ARE FGR.  Coaches leave the New Lawn at 1030 (Sainsburys at 1045, Stonehouse at 1100).  For more details of coach pick-up points etc go to FGR Away Travel – Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club (fgrsc.com)

Book your coach ticket from FGR Tickets | WE ARE FGR or by phone on 0333 123 1889 Monday to Friday, between 9am and 3pm. (Closed Wednesdays)

Please try to book as early as you can as seats will be on a first come first served basis..

By Car – The address for car travellers is Huish Park Stadium, Lufton Way, Yeovil, Somerset, BA22 8YF.  It is a journey of about 86 miles that should take around an hour and 50 minutes.  There is a reasonable amount of parking near the ground – local industrial estates to the west of the ground are probably best.  There is some street parking elsewhere and some parking nearer the ground (cost £3).  The ground is about 2 miles from Yeovil town centre.

By Train – There are a couple of rail stations in Yeovil but this doesn’t look like a good travelling option.  Both stations are 3 miles from the ground (probably needing taxis).  The journey itself is complicated – from Stroud, it’ll take you about 4 hours each way and involve at least 2 changes.  Adult return fares are around £50.  You can get there and back on the same day.

Huish Park is a pretty big stadium in National League terms.  Capacity is 9,565.  There are 2 terraces behind each goal and over 5,000 seats in the 2 stands alongside the touchlines.  Away fans are in one of the terraces and a couple of adjoining block in the stand (see the red areas on the stadium plan).

Behind York, Oldham, Hartlepool & Southend, Yeovil are the 5th best supported side in the National League.  Average attendance this season is 3,145.  A local derby on a Bank Holiday should see a good crowd at the game.

For a  side who were newly promoted this year, they are doing pretty well.  There was a time, earlier in the season, when they were comfortably the best of the newly promoted teams and they were even tilting at a play-off spot.  – certainly best of the 4 teams who came up from the National Leagues South & North.

However, their form has tailed off and they are in 13th place in the league, 11 points away from the relegation places and 9 points off the play-off spots.  Tamworth have overtaken Yeovil as the best placed of the promoted sides.  A mid-table finish looks very likely for the Hatters.

Away from home Yeovil have the 6th best record in the league.  It has been their home form that has let them down – the 5th worst home record in the division – just 27 points from 21 games.

Not many sides (4 of them) have scored fewer goals than Yeovil this season (just 48 in 42 games), but defensively the stats suggest they are fairly tough to score against.

Form-wise they have lost 5 of their last 9 games.  But 4 of these losses have come against play-off ranked opposition, and their most recent outing was a 2-1 victory at home to 4th placed Oldham.  Perhaps the Hatters are starting to play with a bit more freedom?

Striker Aaron Jarvis is joint top scorer with 7 goals.  Aaron joined Yeovil from Torquay last summer.

Another signing from Torquay last summer was Brett McGavin.  McGavin, a midfielder, is Yeovil’s joint leading scorer with 7 goals.

There are numerous connections to FGR in the Yeovil side.  The Yeovil manager, Mark Cooper, is the most obvious connection with FGR (see above).  And Cooper’s son, Charlie Cooper,  played for FGR between 2016 and 2019.  Initially on loan from parent club Birmingham City, Cooper made 46 appearances for FGR, scoring 1 goal.  From 2018 to 2023 Cooper has played for 6 different clubs, 2 of these loan spells.  In 2023 he was reunited with his dad at Yeovil where he has made over 60 appearances (just the 1 goal so far).

In addition to this, Dom Bernard (see below) has been a regular for Yeovil since he joined them last September.  Marcel Lavinier and Jacob Maddox were both released by FGR this year – both are now in Yeovil’s squad.

Charlie Cooper, now at Yeovil.

Mark Cooper came back at The New Lawn as Yeovil manager on New Years Day.  This was Cooper’s first visit to the dug-out since he left FGR in 2021 after 5 years in charge.  It didn’t turn out to be a happy return for Cooper.  Leading at half-time through a strike, Yeovil were pegged back in the 2nd half via a Kyle McAllister penalty before Ryan Innis stroked in a last-minute winner for Rovers.

After leaving Rovers, Cooper moved on to a short managerial spell at Barrow before taking charge of Yeovil in 2022.

Mark Cooper led Rovers into the EFL in 2017.

Dom Bernard in FGR days.

Gloucester-born Dom Bernard made 158 appearances for FGR between 2019 and 2024, scoring 1 league goal.  Dom, now 27, started in the Birmingham Academy.  He had a season-long loan spell at Aldershot before moving to FGR.  He joined Yeovil in September 2024 and made his debut at Fylde, scoring the last-minute winner in a 4-3 thriller.  Dom doubled his goal tally with an equaliser at home to Aldershot.  He has picked up a clutch of yellow cards this season and got a straight red in the recent 4-0 home defeat to York City.

Distinctive for his shorts, Dom was a consummate professional at FGR and a fan favourite.

Who can forget the shorts?

The club are in Somerset and they play at Huish Park, built in 1990 on the site of an old army camp.  They are nicknamed The Glovers – a reference to Yeovil becoming a centre of glove-making in the 18th & 19th centuries.

In 2002 Yeovil won promotion to the EFL for the first time in their history.  This was the start of a 16-year stay in the EFL.  In 2004 they won promotion to League 1.  In 2013/4 they managed a single season in the Championship.  Since then, it has been mostly downhill, with 4 relegations dropping them to the 6th tier in 2023.  It was a short stay in the National League South – they were promoted back to the National League in 2024.  Glovers fans stuck with their team – average attendances last season were almost 4,000, better than they had been for years (and a record for a National League South side).

Yeovil have a very active supporters association.  You’ll find a stack of up-to-date information at https://gloverscast.co.uk/ – well worth checking out.

Yeovil’s Huish Park.

Yeovil Chair, Martin Hellier, announced his decision to sell the club a couple of weeks ago following a 2 year spell in charge.  Hellier funded the club’s rise back into the National League but he has not had an entirely comfortable relationship with the Yeovil fans.  Hellier recently announced on social media “I fully intend to sell the club and leave as soon as a suitable buyer is found……..It’s simply not worth losing the money to be abused and my children abused and so on…….I would ask in the meantime that you stop the endless online harassment and abuse. You’ve done enough, it’s worked.”

Yeovil is 42 miles south of Bristol and 30 miles from Taunton.  It’s in Somerset, close to the Dorset border.  It has benefitted from being a rail centre – it’s on the Waterloo to Exeter line as well as the Bristol to Weymouth line.

As a former centre of Britain’s leather industry (especially glove-making), the town is post-industrial in character.  A journalist recently described Yeovil and 2 other Somerset towns) as a “post-industrial, hardscrabble place that contains [many] council wards in the 20% of English areas classed as the most deprived.”

More recently, the town is known as a centre of aircraft and defence industries.  Westland Helicopters were synonymous with the town.  Now taken over Finnmeccanica, it is still the town’s main employer.  RNAS Yeovilton is just west of the town and BAE Systems also has a site close by.

Screwfix, started life as Woodscrew Supply Company in 1979 in Yeovil.  It is now a subsidiary of Kingfisher plc and moved its warehouse to Stoke on Trent after failing to gain planning permission for expansion in Yeovil.

It is hard to find notable people from Yeovil or many unmissable sights in the town.  However, the folk band Show of Hands did immortalise the town in a song  called “Yeovil Town”.  It is about violence and crime they experienced after playing a small gig in Yeovil in 2010.  These are the full lyrics-

It was ten years ago we did a show in a pub in Yeovil town
but no one came we were packing in the rain hungry, we went to look around
It was late and dark we stopped and we parked
by a chippy in a one way street
We hadn’t ordered before in through the door
came a nightmare swaying on his feet
He was about my size red around the eyes
smelling fo glue and beer
A dotted line across his throat “cut here” said the note
I thought “I’d rather not be here”
He came into my space a foot from my face I took my right hand slowly from my coat
But he wasn’t that slow “are ya gonna ‘ave a go, are you man or a mouse” and I quote
In Yeovil town

Well the scars on his head went well with the web of the spiderman tattooed on his ear
My heart overtime pumped a heady red wine of anger, adrenalin and fear.
Then in from the rain a heavy metal couple came, the frozen moment passed
Our order arrived I pushed him aside and we were outside looking in the glass
With our food in our laps staring at the maps searching for the way out town
Then round the bend came our new friend, Phil said “lets run the bastard down”
That night in Yeovil
In Yeovil town

Well he started up the car he wasn’t too far away staggering in the middle of the road
I saw the fright in the white headlights oh God we only just slowed
He put his hands out, gave the front a clout and seeing it was us inside
Threw his chips on the floor staggered round to my the moment the engine died
That night in Yeovil
In Yeovil town
I was struggling with the lock he was picking up a rock finally the engine fired
We sped into the night we hadn’t touched a bite you know we nearly retired

Well the moral of this song won’t take long
You might want to write this down
Don’t tempt fate, never eat late and stay away from Yeovil town
Don’t tempt fate, never eat late and stay away from Yeovil town.