Yeovil Town lost 2-1 to Championship outfit Millwall at Huish Park last night to go out of this season's Carling Cup competition, but the Glovers were applauded off the pitch by the vast majority of the 5,108 crowd, who'd witnessed a cracking game of football beween two evenly matched sides, despite the hosts being forced to play most of the second half with only 10 men after Liam Fontaine was shown the red card by referee Mike Russell for a professional foul.
Gary Johnson made two changes to the team that drew 1-1 at Bradford City on Saturday, Alejandro Melono making an assured debut in the absence of Colin Miles, and Nathan Jones being preferred to Arron Davies. After a slowish start the first half was dominated by the Glovers with chance after chance either missing the target or being saved by Millwall keeper Andy Marshall, undoubtedly the Lions man of the match. One didn't want the half-time whistle to come as Millwall were barely hanging on at the end of the first half and one goal would surely have seen the floodgates burst open, but it wasn't to be and the scores were still level at the break. The Londoners caught the Glovers cold in the first 10 minutes of the second period with too many players minds seemingly still in the changing room. Alan Dunne sidefooted into an empty net from close range with the Glovers defence nowhere to be seen on 48 minutes, and more controversially Carl Asaba again knocked the ball into an empty net on 53 minutes after what appeared to be a clear foul on Yeovil keeper Chris Weale, not that either referee Mr Russell or his assistant noticed it.
Mr Russell again affected the game 5 minutes later when this time he sent off Glovers defender Liam Fontaine for a professional foul - tugging back Millwall striker Barry Hayles after he broke clear of the Yeovil defence. What Mr Russell missed however and as television replays confirmed afterwards was the initial foul by Hayles on Fontaine, a tugging back in reverse, but the official's zeal to show the red card precluded any time to think and the defender had to go. It's not yet known whether Yeovil will be appealing the decision, if not then it's an automatic one-match ban for Liam and he'll miss the league match against Port Vale this Saturday.
The Glovers looked somewhat shell-shocked after this triple blow and with Millwall pressing forward for a 3rd goal to kill the game off it threatened to turn ugly for a while, but with some judicious substitutions the ten men stormed back at a tiring Millwall side to lay siege to the visitors goalmouth for the last 10 minutes. Yeovil got the goal which was the least they deserved with 4 minutes left on the clock when sub Arron Davies tapped in from close range after great work from Phil Jevons and Lee Johnson, but it was too little too late and it's the visitors who go forward into the draw for the 3rd round on Saturday. Yeovil can take great encouragement from this display however against a team from a higher league. After a slow start to the season the Glovers appear to have rediscovered their passing game again and although there are still clearly areas for the coaching staff to work on - in both penalty boxes mainly - there are definite grounds for optimism for the months ahead.
Final score: Yeovil Town 1 - 2 Millwall.
One area which should be addressed by the club and those responsible was the totally over-the-top amount of police present at last night's match. Approximately 300 Millwall fans attended the game, all of whom appeared to behave well, and they were accompanied by over 50 police officers including dogs and at least 2 horses, from both the local Avon & Somerset force and the Metropolitan Police in London. As anyone with an iota of footballing knowledge and common-sense could have told them beforehand the police of course had nothing to do all night except watch the match and watch their overtime rates clicking up, overtime rates the club and by extension the supporters are paying for. Questions should be asked as to who authorised such a vast policing operation and why they did so. No-one objects to sensible policing designed to stop any potential trouble before it starts, but surely such policing must be intelligence-led. There didn't seem to be a great deal of intelligence about last night's exercise in overkill.
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21 September 2005 : 
