I don’t often get too emotionally involved in football, but today was an exception as my team Yeovil Town secured promotion to the Championship – a remarkable performance given the club’s budget and size. Consider also that it took us 108 years to get into the league yet only 10 to secure two further promotions (with one other play-off final in there as well).
I learned about Yeovil’s promotion from the Conference back in 2003 when on my way into Worcester for a night out via a text message from my Dad. A few eyebrows were raised when in celebration I promised to buy everybody we were out with a drink. Fortunately for my bank account, as the majority of our group (not me, I should add) weren’t yet 18, we didn’t get in anywhere and ended up back at home, far more sober than we might have liked. Not that I cared.
Ten years later, as we held on through six minutes (where did they come from?) of injury time to beat Brentford 2-1 to earn promotion to the Championship, my reaction was a bit more sane and sensible. There were a few tweets, although the emotion almost got the better of me as one mistakenly confused the Championship with the Conference before I amended it and re-sent.
This time it was me texting Dad, asking if he remembered the time back in 1996 and 1997 when we sometimes didn’t even get to see Yeovil’s results on Final Score when they dropped down to the ICIS Premier for a year. Some weeks I had to wait for the evening news on Monday or even the next time I saw a newspaper to find out how we had got on. How times have changed.
His reply suggested he didn’t remember, instead joking that we’d be in the Champions League before too long. I doubt that. I’m pretty sure that our ground isn’t up to the required standard.
My Yeovil Town story: I was born in Yeovil, my Dad taught former Yeovil player Tony Pounder and in 2001, I was patched up by the Yeovil Town medical team after I was struck on the head playing hockey on the adjoining pitch. One of their coaches then took me to the same hospital in which I had been born 18 years earlier.
I watched us get thumped 3-1 by Welling once and it wasn’t until 2006 that I saw us win, a Terry Skiverton header beating Oldham 1-0.