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.

Mark Cooper is back at The New Lawn as Yeovil manager.  This is Cooper’s first visit to the dug-out since he left FGR in 2021 after 5 years in charge.

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

In both side’s last outings on Boxing Day there were last minute equalisers – Eastleigh and Tamworth each scoring in added time to force draws.

Mark Cooper led Rovers into the EFL in 2017.

For a newly promoted side, they are doing very well – certainly best of the 4 teams who came up from the National Leagues South & North.  They are in 10th place in the league and must have their sights set on a play-off spot.

They are performing much better on the road  than at home so far.  Yeovil are just behind FGR in away form this season (20 points from 12 games).  Yeovil’s home form has been their Achilles heel (just 15 points from 12 games).  Yeovil’s season is 10 wins, 5 draws and 9 defeats.  Yeovil are hard to score against (just 27 goals conceded in 24 games) but neither do they score that many themselves (30 goals so far).

8 of Yeovil’s games have finished 1-0 and they have had 3 goalless draws so far.  Almost all of Yeovil’s defeats have come against higher-ranked teams in this division.

Yeovil were dumped out of the FA Cup 1-0 by a late winner away at lower-ranked Chesham Utd.

Striker Aaron Jarvis is second top scorer with 6 goals.  Aaron joined Yeovil from Torquay last summer.

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

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).

Charlie Cooper, now at Yeovil.

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 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.