Just like London buses...

... You wait for ages for news of even one new player and all of a sudden there's nine to talk about!

The Glovers week away in North Devon started well last night with a 5-0 win over Belgian outfit RRFC Montegnee. There's a good match report on the club's official site for those who haven't seen it yet.

More interesting and relevant than the score against the Belgian equivalent of Team Bath however is news of the identities of the various new players/triallists/loanees currently looking for contracts at Huish Park, though before I start on them it appears we've certainly lost at least one face from last week and possibly another two or three as well: Dan Harding has moved on after training with us for a week and is now on trial at Brighton. Doubtless that's the last we shall see of him. Added to that Paul Terry and Andy Lindegaard were conspicuous by their absence from last night's teamsheet. That's not conclusive proof they've moved on of course, but it would be surprising if they were to play any more of a part of the pre-season build-up than they already have, for the reasons discussed last week. No mention of keeper Darren Behcet last night either, though no news doesn't necessarily mean he's moved on either. One player who most definitely is still playing a part is Kevin Gall, who started as a right winger last night.

So who has come in? The good news is that we've got a couple more Spurs lads on loan, though we don't as yet know how long the loans will be for - I suspect that Skivo will be quite rightly keeping his options open on that by taking them for a month initially with a view to a longer deal if the pair work out, as I sincerely hope they will. The players concerned are attacking midfielder/striker Ryan Mason and defender Steven Caulker. I'm delighted in particular with the Mason signing. Loath as I am to blow my own trumpet I was suggesting we should go for him on the green room last season and indeed on this very blog a couple of months ago. He scored a lot of goals for the successful Spurs youth team last season and plays as a second striker or as an attacking midfielder in front of two main strikers. A very exciting prospect and I'm looking forward to seeing him play. I know less about the other lad but by all accounts he's highly thought of at Tottenham and has a good future ahead of him so we'll see. It appears that Mason in particular trained with us at some point last season with a view to joining us this season so kudos to Skivo - he evidently knows how to identify good young players and has the trust of no less a character than Harry Redknapp to develop them properly. The relationship that has sprung up with Spurs could be very important to us in the future, long may it continue.

Edit - it's now been confirmed that both loan deals are for one month initially.

As I said above, there was no mention of Darren Behcet on last night's teamsheet. Two goalkeepers did feature however, Richard Martin was released by Manchester City in June; and Arran Lee-Barrett, a former Muffer who left Hartlepool at the end of last season. Josh Wagenaar is still on international duty with Canada at the CONCACAF Gold Cup at present, though he is yet to start a game in the tournament.

That leaves 5 other triallists to report. They are strikers Dean Bowditch, Hamdi Razak, and Sam Williams; midfielder George O'Callaghan and defender Niall McArdle. All played at least some of the game at Appledore last night. It's pointless for me to provide more biographical detail on all the above here, see the Ciderspace news page here and here for more information.

Next up for the Glovers are Grimsby at Torrington this Friday, followed by a possible semi-final on Saturday and maybe even the dizzy heights of the final itself on Sunday, be still my beating heart. We'll have a better idea of who's in Skivo's plans for the new season this time next week, when Derby County visit us for the first home friendly.

Away from news of new players and triallists I was amused to see that our former local rivals Weymouth are describing tonight's friendly at the Wessex Stadium against our youth team as Weymouth v a 'Yeovil Town XI' and are saying on their official site that we will be playing our reserve squad against their first team. Earth calling Terras, Earth calling Terras: It's the youth team lads, in fact it's likely to be a mixture of the u-18's and u-16's. Good luck to the Muff anyway, if their first team can't beat our yoofs tonight then perhaps we'll send the u-14's next time. Remember when we used to be in the same league as them? Seems an awful long time ago now.