The Yeovil View

Before Saturday's match against Yeovil Town, I interviewed Andrew Foot, who has been a season ticket holder at Yeovil for 15 years. You can have a look at Andrew’s blog http://www.backoftheblackthorn.blogspot.co.uk/ and follow him on Twitter @BlackthornStand. He discusses Yeovil’s survival hopes on a low budget, the job Gary Johnson has done, and offers his take on Yeovil’s controversial goal in the cup game back in August...

You’re bottom of the table, five points from safety, having lost your last four league games. Given that your club runs on a low budget, is this anything less than what you expected?

I think all supporters knew from day one that life would be tough for us in this league. We have such small resources it’s always going to be tough to compete. We’ve put up a good fight and there have been some really encouraging performances, but our budget has stopped us bringing in a player or two with that extra bit of Championship quality. I think we were all prepared for that to be the case.

It’s the January transfer window. If you were in the board’s shoes, would you invest more in the squad now, and risk taking a higher wage bill down to League One?

It’s a difficult one because there’s such a gap in finances between us and most of the clubs in this division. If we could put an extra 10% or so on our wage bill and attract someone who would keep us up then yes, it’d be worth it. After all we may never be here again. In reality, though, we’d have to find so much money we’d be putting the financial stability of the club at risk. I’d rather have a financially healthy League One side than a Championship side going in to administration.

Controversial goal

After the cup game this season, your club has been criticized by sections of our fans for the lack of sportsmanship, in scoring a goal when we had a player down injured. What were your thoughts?

At the time I thought we were wrong in scoring the goal. Given time to think about it and view the incident again, though, I think we had every right to score. Dan Burn went down in an attempt to waste time and I like the fact we took a stand against that. I was disappointed we let the goal in when it would have been the braver thing to say no, we had every right to score that. The whole incident left a bitter taste though, and hopefully both sides can forget about it, both on and off the pitch.

Gary Johnson must be seen as a club legend, having guided you to three promotions in his two spells in charge. How important is it to have a manager the fans connect with?

The club have often fallen a bit short when it comes to communication so  having someone like Gary Johnson in charge is a God send. He says the right things at the right time and knows how to get the supporters on side even when results aren’t great. There is a real ‘we’re in this together’ feeling when he’s in charge and I think that has helped make our recent success that bit more enjoyable.

Gary Johnson

Out of everyone you’ve seen play at Huish Park, which players stand out in your mind?

Coming up through the leagues as we have, we’ve seen an array of players at Huish Park. Probably the best I’ve seen for Yeovil was Steven Caulker, although Andros Townsend and Leon Best were very good too. Against us, for some reason I hate seeing Grant Holt on the opposition team sheet. He’s hardly cultured but one of those good old fashioned strikers. This season, Shane Duffy stands out for me, while Chris Martin was very impressive against us.

In the West Country, do you feel people have the same passion for football as in other parts of the UK?

Very much so, but in a different way I think. Lots of clubs have derbies through their season and that’s where a lot of the passion comes out. Yorkshire sides seem to have one every other week. We are the only league side in Somerset, so we don’t really have that, but we are very passionate about our club and football in general. I think because we are out of the way geographically we have something of an island mentality.

How good was Dan Burn last season?

He was massive in every sense of the word. I thought he might be a bit awkward when he first came in; he looked like the sort who’s head 20 crosses away then trip over a ball on the floor and score an own goal. He grew in experience so quickly, though, and will always be remembered as a huge part of our promotion winning side. His winner at Wembley may not have been pretty but it was a massive moment that none of us there will ever forget. I hope he goes on to play to his full potential.

You’ve got a very young squad. If you do go down, do you think the experience of playing in the Championship will make the players hungry to come back up, or could it damage morale?

With the greatest respect in the world, a lot of the players we have now wouldn’t be close to the Championship if we hadn’t been promoted. We’ve had to be clever with our signings due to the lack of finances so for most of these players it’s a chance they may not have ever expected. I think they are all enjoying it without taking it for granted and if we do go down, I feel we have the squad to maybe challenge again. It may not come to that, though.

Your prediction for Saturday…

I’m not one for predicting scores really but we know how tough every away match is at this level. We need to start getting wins soon or we will leave ourselves too much to do, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be happy with a point.