Yeovil boss says players have to go down to get penalty decisions

Yeovil Town boss Terry Skiverton says referees are encouraging players to cheat because they are not giving penalties unless players go down in the box.

Skiverton’s men drew 0-0 at Stevenage on Saturday after their goalkeeper, Marek Stech, saved John Mousinho’s late penalty, but the Yeovil boss says his side was punished for its honesty in the first half when Gavin Massey stayed on his feet when caught by Boro goalkeeper Chris Day inside the area and the referee did not award his side a penalty.

Skiverton said if Massey had gone down his side would have been awarded a spot kick, but despite his grievances with that decision the Town boss was still pleased with the point.

“If you’re going to go on penalty incidents, what about the first half when Gavin Massey went around the ‘keeper and there was contact?” Skiverton said.

“He’s tried to be honest. This is what I’m talking about in football. It’s almost as if the referee’s not going to give it then he’s encouraging us to cheat because [if] he goes down there it’s a penalty all day long.

“But that’s encouraging people to cheat, but we don’t want to cheat. We want to do it the right way and play by the rules. And when we do things wrong we get punished for it.

“We end up getting out of it, but the lad’s stayed on his feet and tried to be an honest professional and Yeovil Town have been penalised for it.

“Second half penalty, I think it was a penalty. If I was a ref I probably would have given the goal, but he didn’t.

“The second half we sort of dug in for 15 minutes but they had the majority of the play and we couldn’t quite stretch them.

“We had our goalkeeper to thank again. We got a clean sheet away to Stevenage, and that’s a massive achievement for us.”