QPR have only met Yeovil Town twice competitively prior to this weekend, but they did well to avoid becoming the Glovers’ latest cup scalp when they travelled to Somerset as a First Division side in 1988.

Recent Meetings

Yeovil Town 3 QPR 0, Tuesday October 16, 2001, Football League Trophy

For QPR, competing in the Football League Trophy just six years after they’d been a Premier League team was something of a humbling experience. They could therefore have done with drawing one of the many other lower league teams who also saw the competition as something of a pain and a distraction but instead pulled Gary Johnson’s Yeovil side in the first round. This was the year that the top half of the Conference was also included in the draw and so for the Glovers having a former top flight team coming to Huish Park was a big deal regardless of the competition, and a chance for them to add to their considerable legacy of cup upsets. Yeovil were chasing the Conference title at the time and had won four of their last seven with two draws prior to QPR’s visit. Rangers meanwhile had just been relegated and manager Ian Holloway had been forced to put a squad together from a starting point of just eight senior professionals while the club was in administration. It was all a recipe for disaster for the Londoners who were 1-0 down at half time thanks to a goal from Chris Giles and then imploded in the final ten minutes when Kim Grant doubled the lead, defender Aziz Ben Askar was sent off and Giles snuck in a third in injury time.

Yeovil: C Weale, T Schram, G Haveron, T White, A Tonkin, N Crittenden, L Johnson, A Turner, M McIndoe, C Giles, C Alford (K Grant, 78)

Subs not used: S Thompson, A Lindegaard, M Cooper, S Collis

Goals: Giles 37, 90, Grant 80

QPR: C Day, M Bignot (Doudou, 68), B Askar, S Palmer, P Bruce, M Perry, A Bonnot (H Barr, 68), M Rose, K Connolly, A Thomson, S Wardley (R Pacquette, 59)

Subs not used: F Digby, D McEwen

Sent off: Ben Askar 83

Attendance: 2,879

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> Yeovil wins 1 >>> Draws 0 >>> QPR wins 1

2001/02 Yeovil 3 QPR 0*

1987/88 Yeovil 0 QPR 3**

* - Football League Trophy

** - FA Cup

Memorable Match

Yeovil Town 0 QPR 3, Saturday January 9, 1988, FA Cup Third Round

It took Yeovil Town 108 years to finally make their way into the Football League in 2003 but they had long been feared by league clubs in cup competitions.

Playing on the infamous Huish pitch, which sloped eight feet from one touchline to the other, they developed a giant killing reputation, most notably knocking out First Division Sunderland in 1947/48. Yeovil published their record against league clubs in cup competitions in the match programme when Jim Smith’s QPR came to town in January 1988 — the travelling R’s will have noted the names of Bournemouth (twice), Crystal Palace (twice), Exeter, Brighton, Bury, Southend (twice), Walsall and Brentford as well as Sunderland who’d all taken on Yeovil as heavy favourites and fallen over the years.

They’ll also have noted that Yeovil had played eight times in that season’s competition already just to reach the Third Round. Having started in the qualifiers against Gosport they’d needed replays to see off Waterlooville and Worcester, as well as beating Wimborne, Weymouth and Cambridge United — six of those games had been away from home.

So no easy task against the Southern League side then, and when the First Division R’s arrived to find a gale force wind whipping rain and sleet down a mudbath of a pitch even they must have feared an upset was on the cards.

But Smith had prepared his side well. They’d researched the conditions they would find at Yeovil and elected to drive 125 miles further on into Cornwall prior to the match to practise on the pitch of their non-league rivals St Austell which had an even bigger slope on it than Huish and was just as muddy. They even played a friendly down there, beating Truro Town 8-0 — when Mark Hughes talks about “meticulous preparation”…

Smith had lost Terry Fenwick to Tottenham in a £550,000 deal a month before the match but had quickly reinvested the money in Glasgow Rangers striker Mark Falco who scored twice here taking his tally to four goals in six appearances already. Nicky Johns had also arrived from Charlton for £60,000 and he kept a clean sheet with regular starting keeper Seaman out with a thumb injury.

There were, typically, a few early scares for Rangers. Fearns fired wide for the home team and then McGinley made the most of a slip by Paul Parker to curl a shot around Johns in the QPR goal but just past the bottom corner on the far side. A typically robust tackle from Gavin Maguire, replacing Fenwick at sweeper, gave Yeovil a free kick that Rutter met but volleyed wide.

But the natural order of things was restored right on half time when Dawews met a loose ball in the area with a deflected shot that came back off the post to Mark Falco and he slid in the opening goal of the game in front of the QPR fans massed on the terrace behind the goal.

The sides exchanged chances at the start of the second half — McGinley fired over when placed to do better, Bannister struck the crossbar with a header but had been flagged offside in any case. When Paul Randall went clean through on the goal it looked like the equaliser had arrived but he inexplicably sidefooted wide of the target when it seemed harder to miss.

But having won the toss and elected to go downhill in the second period Rangers were able to send speedster Wayne Fereday out with a hill and strong tailwind at his back to run at the tiring non-league players and ultimately a defeat was never on the cards.

In the end the second goal was embarrassingly easy — Falco controlling a low cross from Fereday and then calmly rolling the ball home after being allowed to turn in the heart of the penalty area.

That was the game over with little over ten minutes left to play but Rangers went for another anyway when Brock fed off Dean Coney’s touch back in the area and dribbled round the goalkeeper for a walk in third.

Yeovil: Iles, Sherwood, Ferns, Ricketts, Rutter, Cordice, Donnellan (Chandler), Wallace, McGinlay, Pearson (Noble), Randall

QPR: Johns, Dawes, Dennis, Parker, McDonald, Maguire, Allen, Fereday (Kerslake), Brock, Bannister (Coney), Falco

Attendance: 9,720

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

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