Yeovil Town’s 2021/22 season finally gets underway on Saturday afternoon (3pm) as King’s Lynn Town visit Huish Park.
After last weekend’s fixture with Wrexham was postponed, Town will begin their campaign in-front of Yeovil supporters at Huish Park for the first time since returning to the National League.
A reverse of last season’s opener, King’s Lynn will be hoping for a similar performance after a valiant fight saw them secure a point in their first ever National League game.
For Darren Sarll’s side, the Glovers will be aiming to start their campaign on a positive note, with a number of new signings looking to make their name in a Yeovil Town shirt.
Darren Sarll’s thoughts
Looking ahead to the new season, Darren Sarll only had one thing on his mind when asked what would make a successful season, “Promotion, definitely. It doesn’t mater how many years we stay out the EFL, that is still the aim. I still want to win every week, I want to go to Stockport & Wrexham and take them on.”
Still looking to bolster the squad, Sarll discussed the potential to recruit “I would still like to bring in a couple more, we have a couple of options at the moment that Scott (Priestnall) and I are discussing.
“If they come off before the weekend then great, but if they don’t we will do what we can and put out what is available to us.”
Team news
Speaking in his first press conference of the season, Sarll confirmed a number of absentees for this weekend’s opener. Mark Little & Reuben Reid are long-term injury concerns, with the two stated to return around Christmas.
On the short term, Alex Bradley will be out of contention as he struggles with the long-term effects of COVID-19, whilst Cambridge loanee Lewis Simper is also unavailable.
New signing Adi Yussuf has a few less minutes in his legs in comparison to his teammates, but is still likely to be involved in some capacity at the weekend.
A foot in the opposition camp
There will be a familiar face leading the line for the Linnets; former Glovers forward Gold Omotayo signed for King’s Lynn in the summer, and will be hoping to leave an impression on his return to Huish Park.
The man in the dugout for King’s Lynn is Ian Culverhouse. In 2017 Culverhouse was appointed manager of the then Southern League Premier Division club. He led the Linnets to a second-place finish, after which they lost in the play-off final. He subsequently left King’s Lynn and was named manager of Grantham Town at the end of May 2018. However, after resigning as Grantham manager in October 2018, he returned to King’s Lynn as manager on 1 November that year.
They clinched the runners up spot on the final day of the season before winning the play-offs and Super play-offs to earn themselves a place
in the National League North for the 2019/20 season. Despite being relegation favourites and suffering a 3-0 defeat to Guiseley on the opening day of the season; Culverhouse and his team defied the odds and found themselves embroiled in a promotion battle with York City. When the season was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak; King’s Lynn were in 2nd position, two points behind York but crucially had two games in hand. Following much deliberation by the National League and Football Association, the League was finally settled on a points-per- game calculation, crowning King’s Lynn as Champions and securing them and Culverhouse a second successive promotion.
Have we met before
Our first meeting with the Linnets came on the opening weekend of last season, as the Glovers travelled eastbound to face Culverhouse’s side live on BT Sport. Despite leading twice through Luke Wilkinson & Courtney Duffus, Town were pegged back by the hosts in their first National League game, drawing 2-2.
It was a far more successful afternoon for Town second time round, as a quick-fire Tom Knowles double and a late Emmanuel Sonupe strike secured a 3-1 victory at Huish Park in May.
Ticket news
Tickets can be purchased for the fixture from the Yeovil Town ticket office website, click HERE for more information.
They can also be purchased in-person on match-day from 10am, but there will be a price increase from midday.
