Yeovil Town manager Gary Johnson has said that he welcomes the chance to commence the 2012-13 Season with a game like tomorrow's home match against Coventry City. The Glovers stage their first competitive fixture against the Sky Blues, with the Midlands side playing their first game at this level since 1964. Having regularly been a top flight side since that time, most people associated with Coventry are encountering new territory, with the standard of football at League One level an unknown quantity to them.
Johnson has told BBC Somerset he feels that could be an advantage to his side, in that the Glovers may have the element of surprise, and said that if he'd been hand-picking an opening game, that would be high up on his list:
"It's a super game to have. For me, if I had to pick a team to play on the first game of the season, it would be somebody like Coventry at home. They're probably expecting to beat us. Hopefully the bookies have told them that we're hopeless as well. So we'll have to wait and see what sort of attitude they turn up with."
The Glovers went unbeaten during the 2012-13 pre-season, clocking up five wins and four draws, and so adding that into the midweek win over Colchester United in the League Cup, Johnson's side commence the League One fixtures on ten games without having tasted defeat. He says that has been a big factor in how confident the team are feeling right now:
"The feeling of being aware that yourself and your team-mates are good enough to be unbeaten for ten or eleven games, results in the confidence that flows through the team, and that can only be good. I'm sure that's what's happening at the moment, because they're working hard on the training ground, and they're working hard because they are enjoying what they're doing at the moment."
The bookies may once again disagree with Johnson's views, predicting that the Glovers will be one of the rank outsiders for the season. However, Gary feels that a lot of that is drawn from the way the team have performed in recent seasons and so is not concerned at what they think:
"It doesn't bother me that people think that we're second favourites to go down. They're only going after the last few seasons where the club has been struggling a little bit in the relegation zone, and then manage to creep out of it at the last minute. So that's all they're going on. The bookies are not down here watching us in pre-season, and they wouldn't have seen our games. But our odds will get lower as the season goes on, I'm sure."
As mentioned earlier this month, Coventry will be bringing down just under 2,000 away fans to Huish Park for the game, and so expect Huish Park to be a bit more crowded than usual. Obviously if you're an away fan, then don't travel without a ticket. You'll find plenty of ground information and directions available on this site. For home fans, we'd strongly advise that if you've not bought a ticket, that you take ID with you, such as Supporters Club cards, or Ticket Office Database numbers, as we believe there are a number of checks being made to ensure away fans do not gain admission to home areas of the ground.
If you can't make it, then Richard Hoskin and Chris Spittles are manning the airwaves for BBC Somerset tomorrow on 95.5FM with full live commentary, whilst there will be the usual live tweeting tomorrow on the game, so hit our follow button if you haven't already.
Link: Officials For Yeovil Town vs Coventry City.
Link: Sky Blues Set To Bring Full Allocation To Huish Park.
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17 August 2012 : 
