THE GREAT DIVIDE
Falcao earns in ONE day Yeovil's weekly wag bill for all their players
LOUIS VAN GAAL will walk into Yeovil’s ‘bunker’ today, the ominoussounding office where manager Gary Johnson has been plotting the downfall of English football’s biggest name for the last six days.
But if he wants a good glass of red wine, whatever the result, he has been warned he may have to bring his own.
‘There are no windows,’ said Johnson before a game he puts up there with the biggest in the club’s history. ‘If it’s fresh air he wants then we’ll have to go outside.
‘Unfortunately, if Louis wants an expensive bottle of wine in my office afterwards he’s going to have to bring it with him — he’s probably got a stash somewhere in his kit bag. We’ll go for a mediocre red, but if he wants a real top one then I’ll be happy to share.’
How much they are willing to spend on a decent Merlot isn’t the only thing that’s a little different about these two clubs. Yeovil’s weekly wage budget stands at £37,500 — the amount United striker Radamel Falcao earns in a single day. Wayne Rooney takes home more in a month than the minnows shell out in a year.
Not that it really bothers Johnson, who is the epitome of pragmatism but holds that sparkle which fills this small Somerset town with hope of an unlikely upset to match their greatest ever, against Sunderland in 1949. Incidentally, the prize for that scalp was an 8-0 fifth-round drubbing by United.
‘We’d like to keep our reputation as a good FA Cup side,’ he added. ‘We’ve told all the new lads that Yeovil were the best non-League team for Cup upsets for years, and that we do well when we’re the underdogs. We’re certainly the underdogs here by a million miles.’
They are even more up against it than when the draw was made, with Johnson fully admitting that Yeovil have taken their eye offf the ball since beating g Accrington in the secondd round replay.
None more so than onn Monday, when they were battered 3-0 at home by Leyton Orient in a defeat which leaves them bottom of League One.
‘Some of the players subconsciously saved themselves in that game and lost their place for United. They will learn from that pretty quick.
‘If Louis watched us against Leyton Orient he’d probably feel they could put out their Under 14s against us.
‘Hopefully the boys will go in with a different feeling, without the pressure of the points. Now it’s finally here we just can’t wait.’
Johnson, who says his experience managing Latvia stands him in good stead for games such as this, can’t be far off legend status in this pocket of the West Country. He was the man who won promotion to the Football League in 2003 and then did the unthinkable by taking Yeovil to the Championship two years ago.
‘If we win they might even put a statue up of me,’ he laughed. ‘I reckon I’ve earned one already, but the chairman says I’ve got to do a little bit more yet. I’m only 5ft 7in so it wouldn’t take a lot of metal, would it?’
Johnson’s side are going to have to show more than a bit of mettle if they want to inflict anything worse than a cheap bottle of wine on Van Gaal.
However, when the two teams walk out of the Huish Park tunnel there will be one among them wearing a United shirt under his Yeovil Town kit.
Ten-year-old Harris, a United fan, was handed a late Christmas present by his father, Yeovil striker James Hayter, when he was told he had got him a place as a home mascot for the game.
The fixture is one of the biggest in Yeovil’s history and Hayter admits, at 35 years old, that it will be the greatest in his long career as a forward.
But there was one in the Hayter household who celebrated even more than him when Van Gaal’s team were pulled out of the hat.
‘Harris said d he wants to wear his Manchester Unitednited kit under his Yeovil kit,’ Hayter explained. xplained. ‘He was buzzing about the draw. aw. I only told him on Tuesday he was going to get to be a mascot as well.ll. So it’s even better he’s going to get to o shake hands with all the players. He just can’t wait for the game.’
Hayter’s wife e and their two daughters will be at the game, too, although his parents, Maryy and Richard, are unable to attend. Theyey famously missed the moment their r son scored the fastest hat-trick in Football ootball League history in 2004.
Hayter, playingying for Bournemouth at the time, arrived ved from the bench in the 84th minute to o score three times in just 140 seconds. Butut his parents had left the ground early to catch a ferry back to their home in the Isle of Wight.
‘They were listening to the radio on the way back,’ Hayter said. ‘They were obviously pleased, but they’d left to get the earlier ferry. They still shake their heads about it.’
His father is too unwell to travel to the match today, but both parents will be watching back home on television, eager not to miss this one.
Hayter spent a large part of his career at Bournemouth, raised on stories of them knocking United out of the FA Cup in 1984 when Harry Redknapp was in charge.
Yeovil’s giant-killing exploits are even more legendary and an unlikely victory for the League One team against this United side, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, will perhaps mark their greatest moment of all.
Everyone in a Yeovil shirt will be celebrating wildly if they can pull it off, apart from one young boy with his Manchester United kit on underneath.