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Latest reports on the contracts front suggest that the doom and gloom painted by the Yeovil Express and backed up by plenty of rumours on the terraces, may not be as bad as first feared. At one point it looked like the three experienced players, Al-James Hannigan, Steve Stott and Owen Pickard, would be out of Huish Park under the Bosman ruling, with Slough and Aldershot being touted as possible poachers for the players.

Now, it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The club have reportedly exercised their option on Al-James' contract that allows them to keep Hannigan for an extra year, and although there were suggestions that Hannigan was none too happy in not being able to negotiate a new contract, he has signed up for the extra year.

Next, Steve Stott last night was making all the right noises to suggest that he will be putting pen to paper to sign a one year contract. Steve regards the delay on his signature to now be only down to a matter of paperwork.

Thirdly, it appears that there have been major breakthroughs in the negotiations with Owen Pickard. Owen was not at the Leek match last night, due to injury, but suggestions are that he and the club have sorted out their differences of opinion that seemed to have reached a no-turning-back situation only a few weeks previously.

Can it be coincidental that these breakthroughs have happened after the Yeovil Express wrote a strong article in this weeks paper ? In the article, it was suggested that if the club were to make a serious challenge for the title next season they would have to maintain a stable squad, and that was not going to happen if they let three experienced players go. The paper put the cost of replacing those players at 60K - 80K, and it questioned whether the board would be willing to fork out such money for worthy replacements.

Finally, suggestions are reaching us that Darren Keeling may be leaving the club during the summer. After a bright start, Darren has struggled to get into the team, and struggled when he has got onto the pitch. With him injured currently, it is questionable as to whether he will pull on a Yeovil shirt again. Judging by Keeling's apparent dissatisfaction with his lack of selection, and Lippiatt's substitution of him at Northwich only 33 minutes after being put on as a substitute, it would appear that if Keeling leaves, it will be pretty much by mutual consent. With Lippiatt rumoured to have earmarked two strikers for summer signing, it would seem the writing is on the wall.

Goalkeeper Malcolm Rigby has left Yeovil Town after playing just five first team games. Although it appears that he impressed coach Colin Lippiatt enough to allow Rigby to discuss contracts with the board, it seems that the club could not afford to sign Rigby, who was looking for a reasonable contract to persuade him to move to Somerset.

His departure once again leaves Yeovil Town without any serious cover for Tony Pennock. Rigby had covered for Pennock during five Conference games when the first choice keeper was recovering from a broken rib sustained in the home game against Hayes.

This week's edition of the Western Gazette speculates about possible summer signings at Huish Park. Rumours that Wycombe striker Sean Devine has been approached by Yeovil have been firmly denied by Colin Lippiatt, as have stories linking the club with Northwich Victoria pair Paul Tait and Chris Duffy.

According to the Gazette enquiries have been made however about Leek Town's captain and midfielder 22-year-old Iain Brunskill, who is out of contract at the end of the season; and Lippiatt has also been talking to Cheltenham boss Steve Cotterill as some of Cheltenham's championship-winning squad are thought to be reluctant to make the switch to full-time football next season. The paper claims that out-of-contract Steve Stott and Owen Pickard are still in talks with the club and that Yeovil will take up the option of a year's extension on Al-James Hannigan's contract.

In contrast the Yeovil Express reports that Stott and Pickard are set to leave Huish Park after failing to agree new contracts with the club and that Al-James Hannigan is far from happy with the terms being offered on the year's extension to his contract. Time will tell as to which newspaper is nearer the truth of the matter.

Elsewhere in both papers Colin Lippiatt has threatened to leave the club after the home crowd's reaction to defeat against Morecambe on Tuesday night. He's quoted in the Gazette as saying: "I am the first to admit our performance was poor, but there are lots of people at this club who have to take a long, hard look at themselves because some of the stick we are coming in for is getting beyond a joke. And if it carries on I will not remain at this club."

It's sad to have to report that former Yeovil Town manager Brian Hall died this morning at the age of 59, after a long illness caused by cancer. Brian was appointed as Yeovil manager in January 1987, and enjoyed a successful time at Yeovil, until his controversial sacking in October 1990. He returned for a second spell between 1994 and 1995 but with the club in financial ruin, this spell was shortlived and far less memorable.

Ciderspace will be carrying a tribute to Brian Hall over the next couple of days. Our best wishes go out to his friends and family.

Further to our last report on April 11th on the campaign to put a roof on the Huish Park terrace, we can now provide you with a little extra incentive to ideas as to a name for the campaign. The Roof Committee, along with the Somerset Express are willing to award a prize to the person who makes the winning suggestion for the campaign name. The prize will be a family ticket for a match at Huish Park (two adults plus two kids) along with a replica shirt when next years kit is available.

The roof committee are ideally looking for names associated with the Year 2000 or the Millenium, but want to establish a separate identity to the existing Octagon Theatre campaign in the town which is already called "Raise The Roof".

To enter the competition, simply e-mail us or alternatively drop your entry in at the club offices, or post it to the Somerset Express offices. Mark your entries for the attention of Steve Sowden at 46, Princes Street, Yeovil, Somerset, BA20 1EQ. Tel: 01935-479811 or Fax : 01935-432251. All entries must be received by Friday 7th May 5:00pm.

Latest news from the committee is that Cathy Pickford has withdrawn from her position as Press Officer and her position has been taken by Ciderspace's very own Tim Lancaster. Good luck Tim!

Future plans for events include a bucket collection at the Stevenage game on Saturday so dig in deep when the buckets come past at half time. You know where that money is going! Also planned is a cricket match between a local side and a Yeovil Town XI on May 30th, plus an unusual pre-season football friendly involving the Away Day Lads. Keep an eye on the Events calendar on the front page for info as the days arrive.

Yeovil Town duo Steve Stott and Murray Fishlock have been confirmed as part of the Middlesex Wanderers touring party heading to India over the summer. Rob Cousins has also been named as a reservist. Yeovil Town did have five players shortlisted, but the committee is attempting to select a wide cross-section of players from different clubs, and so two of the Yeovil players, Warren Patmore and Kevan Brown (who toured last year) will almost certainly not make the final party. The tourists are due to leave for India on May 24th.

Yeovil go into tonight's game with Morecambe with a very much depleted side. Still out is Owen Pickard, but he is also joined by Darren Keeling and Arthur Appleton, meaning that Tony Pounder is likely to partner Warren Patmore up front, as he did for the final 12 minutes at Northwich.

At left back Anthony Tonkin is likely to deputise for an injured Murray Fishlock, whilst in goal Tony Pennock will almost certainly return. On the bench could be Rob Smith, who if selected could be in line for his first appearance since September 1998, when he damaged cruciate ligaments in his knee, and whom has recently returned to full training following an operation on that knee. Rob made his recall to football for the reserves in the 0-3 defeat against Tiverton.

ex-Yeovil striker Howard Forinton scored his debut goal for Birmingham City tonight,with an 85th minute header giving the Blues a 1-0 win and their first in sixth matches after a goal drought and a succession of injuries brought Forinton into the first team. The goal virtually guaranteed Birmingham a position in the play-offs; only an improbable series of events can stop them now.

Last nights premier fund raising event for the project to raise a roof for the Huish Park Stadium was a runaway success. Over 150 people packed into the Vice President's Executive Bar to take part in and watch the clubs Race Night, organised by supporter Mark Kelly.

By the time the bar closed, the takings on the races, the raffles and the auctions were believed to have raised over 1000 pounds for the fund. Mark Kelly made sure the money kept rolling in, whilst Terry Cotton did an excellent job as auctioneer for the night.

The playing squad put in a good turnout, and those present at the evening included Steve Stott, Tony Pounder, Warren Patmore, Malcolm Rigby and Rob Cousins. Warren Patmore was presented by a commemorative tankard to celebrate his 100th goal for the club by Mark Kelly and the Away Day Lads. Malcolm Rigby deserves special credit, as despite being only four games into his Yeovil Town career, he was still betting on horses and propping up the bar at 11:00pm. Ciderspace managed to secure an interview with Malcolm which will be published here and in the clubs match day programme for the Morecambe home match on Tuesday 27th April.

An inaugural meeting was held last night at Huish Park to lay down plans to form a committee that will be responsible for driving the clubs plans to build a roof on one of the terraces at Huish Park Stadium.

A committee was voted in which includes Steve Sowden (Chairman), Gail Franklin (Secretary), John Hall (Treasurer), Cathy Pickford (Press Officer), Pauline Lock (Boardroom Representative).

One initial aspect that the committee will have to deal with is to give the campaign a formal name. Yeovil's Octagon Theatre is currently using a "Raise The Roof" monicker and so the committee want to establish a unique identity for the campaign. They are looking for ideas. If you want to suggest a name for the appeal, mail us at Ciderspace and we will pass it on. As a clue for a suitable name, the club want to establish the Year 2000 as a key aspect of the campaign.

Teletext confirms that Yeovil will be without Steve Thompson, Steve Stott, Phil Simpson and Owen Pickard tomorrow. Simpson and Pickard, both suspended, will be available to face Cheltenham on Thursday, whilst unconfirmed rumours suggest that the injuries to Stott and Thompson are healing well. Hopefully, the temptation to rush Thompson back will not be repeated twice though - against Rushden he lasted only eight minutes.

Yeovil won tonight's away match at Rushden, 2-1, with goals from Warren Patmore and David Piper, but at a cost. Steve Thompson was stretchered off after eight minutes with further hamstring problems and will almost certainly miss the rest of the season.Steve Stott was substituted at half time with a pulled calf muscle and believes he will be out for a couple of weeks. Finally Goalkeeper Malcolm Rigby was nursing a badly bruised hand, injured in the melee in the closing seconds at Nene Park and seems doubtful for Saturday's game against Leek. Just as well then, that Tony Pennock is just about ready to return! For a full match report see here.

The reserve side produced a heroic performance today when they knocked FA Vase finalists Tiverton out of the Les Phillips Cup Semi-Final today. In front of the best reserves crowd of the season, 601 spectators saw an exciting 0-0 draw, with Yeovil, and in particular Arthur Appleton, looking the most likely to break the deadlock during the final 20 minutes. Matt Hayfield made his comeback, after being out of the first team since January. With no score at full time, the teams went into injury time, but a penalty shoot-out had to decide the contest. After ex-Yeovil player Dave Leonard missed his kick, Michael Adams was the hero, shooting Yeovil into the final for a 8-7 win on penalties. They will play Clyst Rovers who overcame Chippenham Town with the venue likely to be Paulton Rovers' ground on May 8th.

There's a rather interesting article that's appeared in Non-League On The Net regarding the increasing speculation over changes being made to the current iniquitous system of promotion and relegation between the Conference and the 3rd Division. NLOTN has of course got things wrong in the past, but hey, nobody's perfect and who are we to cast the first stone? If it's true then it could make life very interesting next year ... The article can be found here.

It's Thursday and that must mean that today is local newspaper day! Hooray! Calm down at the back there. The Western Gazette's main back-page lead in the paper version is a re-hash of a story they printed a few weeks ago concerning the possibilty that Yeovil will receive £20,000 from Birmingham City if and when Howard Forinton and Jerry Gill make 10 first-team appearances for the Blues. Gill and Forinton have appeared 8 and 4 times for Birmingham respectively, so don't hold your breath for the money.

The paper also reports that Tony Pennock is making a quicker recovery from his rib injury than anticipated. Apparently the player is confident of returning in time to face Rushden at Nene Park next Tuesday, although the club seems to think a return against Leek the following Saturday is more realistic.

Finally, the Gazette reports that Yeovil are hoping for their largest-ever crowd for a reserve team fixture this Saturday at Huish Park for the visit of Tiverton in the semi-final of the Les Phillip's Cup. Tiverton should be at full strength and could include Yeovil rejects (is that fair to call them rejects? Yes -ed.) Peter Conning, Dave Leonard and Phil Everett in their side. Even though the first-team have no game on Saturday, competition rules don't allow the Glovers to strengthen their side.

Colin Lippiatt has been confirmed as the winner of the Conference Manager of the Month award for March 1999, following a run of four wins and one draw. The Teletext Conference Pages amusingly report that he is the first Yeovil boss to collect the award since March 1993. It seems their records are a little flawed as this is his second award of the season with him having picked up the award during November 1998.

Reserve team boss Terry Rowles has picked up the Screwfix Direct League's equivalent honour, also being named Premier Division Manager of the Month for March.

Steve Thompson's exit on the 90 minute mark is more serious than initially thought. Yeovil's most used player this season will now sit out around three weeks with a pulled hamstring. Steve will be in good company. Yesterday, watching from the side terrace, were Warren Patmore, Kevan Brown, Rob Smith, Tony Pennock and Jamie Pitman. Matt Hayfield is also still unavailable, and so with three more suspensions due for Simpson, Pickard and Hannigan and the latter two carrying knocks, team selection could be tricky business for the rest of the season, especially with five games planned for the final ten days.

If you can contain yourself in all the excitement, a report of today's sleepy 0-0 draw with Farnborough is available here.

Bottom of the league Welling were on paper a pushover for a Yeovil team still in with an outside chance of the title before today's game at Huish Park. A pity the game is played on grass then, because in a battling and gutsy performance today The Wings outplayed an obviously tired Yeovil outfit to take all 3 points in a deserved 3-1 victory, and all in front of Yeovil's 3rd highest league gate of the season. If, as now seems likely, The Glovers have indeed blown their title hopes this season they need look no further than their home form for the reason why. A full match report is here.

Various snippetts in todays Yeovil Express not already reported here: Cheltenham and Rushden are now joint favourites with bookmaker's Ladbrokes to win the Conference title at 11-10. Yeovil have overtaken Kettering at 10-1 with The Poppies fading to 14-1. Kingstonian are at 40-1 and Hayes are rank outsiders at 66-1. Everybody else might as well not bother.

As reported here last week under-16's are to be given free admittance when accompanied by one paying adult to the Welling game this coming Saturday. Any additional children will be charged just £1. According to the Express this trial will now be extended to the forthcoming Leek (April 17th) and Morecambe (April 27th) home fixtures. If the trial proves successful it's likely that it will become a permanent feature next season.

You lucky people, tickets for the club's annual dinner-dance are now on sale at £25 each. The event takes place at Westland Sports Club on May 21st and features the talents of Ben Murphy, Intrigue and Take Two. Phone 01935 423662 for details.

Finally, the Express reports that the first event scheduled to raise money for the club's 'Raise the Roof' Appeal looks like it will be a roaring success. Supporters have organised a horse-racing night in the bar at Huish Park on April 17th with 6 pre-recorded races featured. All of the races have attracted sponsors at £20 each and the organisers are hoping for a good turn-out of punters on the night.

In a shock announcement today, a club spokesman revealed plans to make Huish Park "the San Siro of the South-West." The ground is to be made an all-seater, 25,000 capacity with executive boxes added to the Bartlett Stand and bars in all four corners of the stadium. Disabled facilities will also be upgraded but controversially there are no plans as yet to add roofs to either the home or away ends. The club spokesman said: "Work will begin in the summer and should be completed in 2 years. We will ground-share with Weymouth in the meantime which I recognise may not be universally popular with all our supporters but we all have to make sacrifices. When we have finished we shall make Nene Park look like Twerton Park."

The club refused to reveal how much the improvements would cost but said that money would still be made available to Colin Lippiatt to strengthen the team and that while they were at it the pitch would be re-laid with some drains installed this time around. When asked about the possibility of under-soil heating being added the club spokesman said, "We are not made of money, you know." Chairman John Fry was last night unavailable for comment.

To go to the Ciderspace News Archives, click here.

For current news direct from the club go to the official site news page.