L1: MK Dons 2 Yeovil 2

The Glovers came away from their endeavours at stadium:mk on Saturday with a point following a 2-2 draw with the MK Dons. I'd never normally moan about an away draw and I'm not going to start now, especially as I got back 18 quid after putting a fiver on that very result. Nevertheless there's a teeny tinge of regret that after going a goal ahead twice during the match the Glovers weren't quite able to hold on to those leads and take all 3 of the points on offer. Credit where it's due though, after a bad run of results this was in the end a very welcome point away from home against a side in the play-off places before the start of the match.

Skivo rightly changed things around at the start, abandoning the familiar 4-4-1-1 in favour of the 4-4-2 diamond as advocated by a certain very shrewd judge before the game. In addition both wingers were dropped and Gavin Tomlin and Nathan Smith returned to make their first starts for some time, again as advocated by the same very shrewd judge before the game. Modesty forbids me from identifying that shrewd judge, suffice it to say that who needs UEFA coaching qualifications when the Football Manager series of pc games is available to all. The game turned on a couple of refereeing decisions that managed to enrage the Yeovil camp. Firstly Dons defender David McKracken escaped with a yellow card after fouling Dean Bowditch thus preventing a goalscoring opportunity with the Glovers already 2-1 up, when a red card seemed the more appropriate punishment - a decision even Dons manager Paul Ince admitted could have been overly lenient. Secondly was the award of a penalty to the home side when Terrell Forbes was deemed to have dragged over Aaron Wilbraham in the Glovers box when tv replays suggested it was the Dons player that committed the first offence before Forbes's reaction. Skivo's come in for a bit of criticism for his anguished reaction to the referee's performance after the match, but I don't blame him for speaking out. Referees seem to get away with mistake after mistake with it seems no public sanction and yet again errors by the officials have cost us points. The received wisdom is that such mistakes even themselves out over the course of the season, but does it? I suspect it may do for the Leeds United's and Charlton Athletic's of League One, it's the smaller clubs like ourselves that always seem to end up holding the shitty end of the stick. Good for Skivo for not just rolling over and accepting it.

The result moves the Glovers up 1 place in the table to 13th, on 23 points. However we are now only 3 points away from the relegation zone and even with 7 other teams between ourselves and the 21st placed club, Brighton, we could, theoretically, if all the results went against us, end up in the relegation zone ourselves next week should we lose at home to next Saturday's opponents Norwich City. But it's not likely!

Just read: Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. It's funny but these days it's quite fashionable to admit to liking Pratchett's books whereas a decade or so ago he was more widely regarded as just another fantasy writer, albeit a fantasy writer with a sense of humour. And yet I far prefer his earlier work in comparison with his output in the last few years. The good news is that Unseen Academicals, the latest in the Discworld series, is something of a return to the man's early form - I even found myself laughing out loud in several places, something I haven't done to a Pratchett book for a long while now. You either 'get' the Discworld with its wizards, witches, trolls, dwarfs, vampires, werewolves and various other weird and wonderful creatures, or you don't; and if you don't then Unseen Academicals is unlikely to change your mind about the series as a whole.