Huish Park

Wednesday 8 May 2013

Yeovil Town 2-0 Sheffield United

Programme - £3.00

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 7/10
Ease of getting there : 7/10
Atmosphere : 10/10
Programme : 8/10
View of Action : 7/10
Quality of the game : 7/10
The "football" feeling : 8/10
Chances of coming here for a random game : 1/10
Legroom : N/A
Surrounding area : 9/10

Overall : 64/100

Copse Road End

Thatchers Gold Stand Terrace

Augusta Westland Stand

Thatchers Gold Stand Terrace

Screwfix Community Stand

Augusta Westland Stand

Copse Road End

Screwfix Community Stand

Yeovil Town 2-0 Sheffield United

When the season ends in the Football League, the season continues for 12 lucky clubs from the Championship down to League 2. Sadly only 3 of those clubs will see success whilst the other 9 consolidate and prepare for next season in the same respected divisions. With that in mind, the play offs are a great spectacle for the neutral as Adrian and I (Ross) saw the previous season when Cheltenham Town played Torquay United at Whaddon Road. We decided following the last game of the season to visit Huish Park in the play offs and they were to play Sheffield United in the second leg. We booked our tickets as soon as possible and we were in luck, we managed to get two tickets. On the morning of the game, as it was a 1:30pm kick off we left at 8:30am and headed down the M42 before joining M5 on the other side of Birmingham and then down towards Bristol. We continued our travelling to Yeovil on the A37 before we eventually reached Huish Park at noon.

Once we parked the car on Stourton Way, we made the short walk to the ground in the scorching Bank Holiday Monday sunshine!

With the big match atmosphere building up, we took photos outside the ground and collected our tickets. Amongst the ‘sea of green’, we ate our hot dog and bacon roll before deciding to go in. Before we went in, we realised that a body search was in operation for ‘the big game’. To the annoyance of Adrian, he decided to make the steward’s job difficult by picking out loose change in his pockets and generally taking his time to the humour of the turnstile operator and myself.

Adrian surprisingly got in before the 1:30 kick off and we made our way up the terrace absorbing the pre match atmosphere which eventually became dominated by the booming music down the PA system in the usual fashion of modern football!

Huish Park was opened at the start of the 1990-1991 season following Yeovil’s move away from the previous ground, Huish.

The 1999–2000 season saw the proposed erection of a roof over the home terrace. The work eventually took place in early 2001, with the roof being completed for the match against Rushden & Diamonds with a then record crowd of 8,868. The capacity of Huish Park is 9,565.

The Glovers trailed 1-0 from Friday's semi-final first leg. Inside the first five minutes, Kevin Dawson slotted home giving Yeovil an early 1-0 lead (1-1 on agg). United’s Jamie Murphy hit the bar in an end-to-end encounter but ultimately it was Ed Upson who won it for Yeovil in the dying stages, heading home Paddy Madden's cross five minutes from time to continue the Blades' play-off woe for the second season in a row.

We left the ground fairly quick after the game whilst the sea of green spilled onto the pitch. We got to the car by 3:30 and were soon travelling back towards the Midlands and back home by 7pm.

Adrian and I really enjoyed our trip to Somerset and it was made more enjoyable with the occasion and the outcome of the game too. It’s incredible to think that Yeovil Town will be in the Championship following their 2-1 win against Brentford in the League 1 Play-off Final at Wembley.

From the Conference to the Championship in 10 years!