Overdue victory may prove right omen for Yeovil

This week brought some good news at last for the supporters of Yeovil Town, for whom the excitement of last season was fast becoming a distant memory.

The Somerset club secured an excellent 2-0 win at Hereford United on Tuesday – a victory which came as a great relief for the Glovers, who had collected just one point from their previous four Nationwide Conference fixtures.

Despite the success at Edgar Street, Yeovil are in the lower half of the table. They have been struggling to recapture the form of last season, when they led the table for a number of weeks before finishing second behind the eventual champions, Rushden & Diamonds.

That all was not well at Huish Park became evident soon after last season came to a conclusion. Colin Addison, after less than a year in charge, quit as manager following some surprising criticism from the Glovers' chairman, John Fry, at the failure to capture the title. The former Cambridge United manager, Gary Johnson, who had just completed a spell as coach of the Latvian national team, was appointed as Addison's replacement.

Several of last season's squad have moved on, including the goalkeeper, Tony Pennock, and the strikers, Warren Patmore and Barrington Belgrave, who followed the former Yeovil manager David Webb to Southend United last week.

Johnson's new recruits have had mixed fortunes. The former Tottenham and Rotherham winger, Andy Turner, seems unpopular with sections of the home crowd.

The striker, Carl Alford, once non-League football's most expensive player, has at least found the net this term, something he failed to do in the Conference last season when with Doncaster Rovers. He opened the scoring at Hereford with his third goal of the campaign. The ex-Cambridge United and Plymouth goalkeeper, Jon Sheffield, played well on Tuesday but, as the manager has admitted, was at fault for some goals conceded earlier in the season.

Johnson, who has this week signed the right-back Adam Lockwood on loan from Reading, said after Tuesday's victory: "Good players will always come right in the end. We've got some good players here and they just need to prove that they can be consistent over a period of time."

More recruiting may be needed, though. Yeovil's manager needs to find replacements for two midfielders: Roy O'Brien broke a leg last weekend while Michael McIndoe suffered ankle damage at Hereford and may be out for a month.