Tuesday 18th August 2009 

League One

EXETER CITY 1 YEOVIL TOWN 1 - ATTENDANCE: 6,650

The first ever Football League meeting between the two sides ended all squarein front of an excellent attendance, of which 1,100 travelled from Yeovil. There was a slight change in formation for the City side with Marcus Stewart dropping back into midfield to leave James Norwood up front on his own. 

And it looked as though it would work too, when as early as the second minute an Alex Russell free kick from near the tunnel saw Matt Taylor rise highest in the box to glance wide.

In the tenth minute City deservedly took the lead when Troy Archibald-Henville fed the ball out to Stewart who cut it back into the overlapping : Liam Sercombe steaming into the box. He sent a drive across the box where the unfortunate Stefan Stam sliced the ball wickedly past his own keeper and into the far corner to make it 1-0 to City.

Stam's miserable night ended two minutes later when, in fouling Norwood for a free kick he managed to injure himself and immediately was replaced.

A couple of minutes later Stewart took down a high ball in masterly fashion before driving across the edge of the box to Bertie Cozic who, with his back to goal, swivelled to pull a good looking shot wide.

In the 20th minute sustained pressure from Sercombe, Cozic and Russell saw the ball fed back to Ryan Harley, but he blasted his 25 yarder wastefully over.

And that was it as far as goal mouth action was concerned for the next 20 minutes as Yeovil struggled to get out of their half, and City struggled to make their dominance tell, particularly in and around the box.

With time running out Yeovil mounted their first attack of note when a free kick from the left was nudged narrowly wide, then almost immediately order was restored at the other end when Norwood and Sercombe combined for Stewart to flash wide from fifteen yards.

It was a completely different story at the start of the second half with Yeovil forcing a seemingly endless series of (ineffective) corners and City rarely managing to get the ball beyond the half way line.

BBC match summary and information. 

Ryan Mason struck a superb 72nd-minute goal to earn a point for Yeovil against West country rivals Exeter.

The on-loan Spurs midfielder found the net with a 30-yard lob after keeper Paul Jones made a hash of his clearance from a Richard Duffy backpass.

The Grecians had taken an early lead when Stefan Stam sliced the ball into his own net from Liam Sercombe's cross.

The hosts had plenty of chances to extend their lead and were made to pay by Mason's wonder goal. In the 71st minute City paid the ultimate price for sitting too deep and not clearing the ball properly. After one pass too many across the back four - and getting deeper into trouble with each one - Richard Duffy played the ball back to Paul Jones from about 25 yards out.

Onto Jones' left foot, with which he hacked it up the Park as best he could. Unfortunately straight to the delighted Ryan Mason who from fully 30 yards smashed the ball gleefully straight back past Jones and into the corner of the net for a somewhat bizarre yet all too predictable equaliser.

Four minutes later Craig McAllister and Richard Logan were introduced for Cozic and Norwood, and so the fight back began.

With fifteen minutes left. Harley played the ball into McAllister from deep, where he flicked on to strike partner Logan, who couldn't quite beat the gaggle of defenders rushing back and the ball was collected comfortably by the keeper.

With five minutes remaining a limping Steve Tully was replaced by Scott Golbourne, and then came City's last chance of a winner, and went, when McAllister failed to latch onto Logan's knock down and the ball was cleared to safety.

Exeter City team: paul Jones, Steve Tully (Scott Golbourne), Matt Taylor, Troy Archibald-Henville, Richard Duffy, Alex Russell, Bertie Cozic (Craig McAllister), Ryan Harley, Liam Sercombe, Marcus Stewart, James Norwood (Richard Logan)

Yeovil Town team: Alex McCarthy, Craig Alcock, Stefan Stam (Terrell Forbes), Steven Caulker, Nathan Smith, Danny Schofield, George O'Callaghan, Ryan Mason, Andrew Walsh (Gavin Tomlin), Jonathan Obika (Kieran Murtagh), Sam Williams

Referee: Christopher Sarginson

Att: 6650 with 1116 away fans.

Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale told BBC Devon:

"I'm disappointed that we only got a point and I have to fight to remember that we had a really excellent performance in the first half.

"In the second half we showed a little bit of naivety because there's certain elements to our game which are not nailed down yet.

"At this level you're going to be punished for mistakes you make and we're going to have be more tight with our disciplines."

Yeovil Town player-manager Terry Skiverton told BBC Somerset:

"It seems like I'm repeating myself again. I'm really upset with the first-half performance. You try and tell people to do a job and they just don't do it.

"In the second half we had to change our shape and combat them.

"They played some really good football and we couldn't get near them. In the end the adjustments we had to make worked in our favour."