March 5th: Yeovil Town v Huddersfield Town
Attendance: 3,620
So we've arrived at this part of the season. The 'tickly' part as Steve Bruce said the other day. The leagues are dividing themselves into thirds. The top third is going for promotion, the bottom third is panicking about relegation and the middle third is checking how many points they need to either join the top third or avoid being sucked into the bottom third. One thing for sure is that very point counts from here on in.
The top of League 1 currently looks like this:
Brighton 32 played 65 points
Bournemouth 34 played 61 points
Huddersfield 34 played 57 points
Peterborough 33 played 56 points
Southampton 32 played 55 points
MK Dons 35 played 55 points
Brighton & Hove Albion are certainly looking like contenders for one of the two automatic promotion places. They've been consistently good all season. Bournemouth likewise. I'd love to see my team, Huddersfield, swap places with Bournemouth but after watching them at Yeovil on Saturday I am not getting my hopes up.
I haven't been to as many games as I would have liked to this season but every match I have attended, I've seen a different team on the pitch. I don't mean in terms of players - the names on the backs of their shirts are the same. I mean performance. When I watched our opener against Notts County back in August I was filled with awe. Town were brilliant throughout the 90 minutes. They tore the newly promoted side to shreds and their 0-3 win away from home was a declaration of intent. A month later, I attended the Town v Yeovil match. Often slow to get going, we were atrocious for the first half and a deserved two-nil down until someone switched the 'on' button and hey, presto, the incisive play returned and we triumphed 4-2. Then there's the third type of Town match. The type where they're slow to get going but there's no 'on' switch in the second half and the entire match is a woeful display of slopping passing and no one talking to each other. To make things worse, these matches are usually against opposition we should, in theory, beat. Strugglers like Dagenham and Redbridge for example or, like on Saturday, Yeovil Town. Yeovil, only 4 points above the drop zone, should have meant three points in the bag. But no.
It was just one of those awful matches where both sides played substandard football. It didn't help when Lee Peltier (ex- Yeovil, ironically) raised an elbow and was sent off after 12 minutes but even so Town were a shadow of the mighty team who took on Arsenal in the FA Cup only weeks earlier. In-form striker Anthony Pilkington showed some flare and in defence Peter Clarke was solid but all in all it was lack-lustre stuff as grey as the clouds above Huish Park. It was 1-1 in the end - Antony Kay equalised from a free kick - but we only just deserved the point.
On the plus side, the cornish pasty I had in the ground was lovely and the stewards at Yeovil were polite and friendly, if too zealous at checking the content of women's handbags. 'Could you lift your purse up so I can see underneath it?' the guy asked as he peered into mine.
'Are you expecting trouble?' I asked.
'It's Yeovil policy,' he explained.
'There's nothing in it. We're not Leeds fans, you know,' I joked.
'Don't mention Leeds,' he said, his face paling.
It's not great, as anecdotes go but it's the best I can do, given the circumstances.
Never mind. I'll keep the faith, as always. Come on Town. Up and at 'em.
Never mind. I'll keep the faith, as always. Come on Town. Up and at 'em.
Helena Pielichaty
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