WELCOME to the Football League. After 108 years, 28 rejected applications and a fistful of near-misses post automatic promotion, Yeovil Town began their first Nationwide League campaign yesterday and, my, how at home they already seem as two goals from Kevin Gall helped brush spirited Rochdale aside.

The Glovers swept through last season’s Football Conference, where they lost only three matches and finished 17 points ahead of second-placed Morecambe.

For the biggest League day in their history, more than 1,500 exuberant Somerset yeomen, including seven cyclists, made the long trek north. As if to confirm the force was with the team as well as their acolytes, Brentford, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Brighton and Hove Albion had all left Huish Park defeated in pre-season friendlies. Rochdale, by contrast have spent 29 grim years — longer than any other club — attempting to escape the Football League basement that the visitors once aspired to. Inevitably, the home side were minor actors on their own stage.

Indeed, they were underdogs in concrete terms. Yeovil’s average crowd last season was 4,741; Rochdale’s highest was 4,513.

Even so, Rochdale too had cause for optimism as the season kicked off: a new manager in the shape of that wily war-horse Alan Buckley and five new signings including loanee Chris Shuker, a Premiership starter for Manchester City last term. “I don’t like making predictions,” Buckley noted in the match programme, “and I never will.”

In stifling conditions more akin to Lahore than Lancashire, Rochdale began brightly and had unmarked Shuker’s fifth-minute header from Leo Bertos’s whiplash corner been marginally better aimed, Yeovil’s party would have had a most inauspicious start.

Soon, though, the Glovers’ midfield quintet began to stymie the home side’s supply lines and, come the 22nd minute, Nick Crittenden raced on to Colin Pluck’s hoof forward as the home defence stood and watched. Alas, for Yeovil, the erstwhile Chelsea starlet’s sidefoot was high and wide.

The home side’s respite lasted just three minutes. Gavin Williams launched a magnificent 40-yard crossfield pass from just inside his own half. With composure that would have not been out of place in the first — let alone the third — division, striker Gall controlled, strode forward and fired past Matthew Gilks from 15 yards. The strike and the occasion deserved each other.

As half-time beckoned, there was still time for Gall to force a smart low save from Gilks, but the heat did not wither Rochdale.

In added time, Paul Connor ran on to Chris Beech’s ricocheted through-ball, left the startled defence in his wake and slotted coolly past visiting goalkeeper Chris Weale to equalise.

The sun remained unyielding after the break, but Rochdale continued as full pelt.

Bertos was a consistent threat on Rochdale’s right and Hugo Rodrigues — at 6ft 8in, England’s tallest footballer — was making the most of his of his sizeable height advantage over Shuker.

If Town’s first goal was sublime, their second was ridiculous. Just as it seemed Rochdale were about to charge ahead, the experienced Daryl Burgess conceded a free kick just outside the penalty area. As Gilks stood at his right hand post arranging his wall, Lee Johnson, son of manager Gary, swept a low curler to the young goalkeeper’s left. Yeovil might be new to the Football League, but they are no strangers to some old tricks.

Behind again, Rochdale began to look ragged as Town assumed full control. The third was inevitable.

Rodrigues’s clearing header found Kirk Jackson, who sprinted past the struggling Burgess, drew Gilks and unselfishly squared for Gall to tap home his second from a yard.

“Ooh ah,” sang the travelling hordes as the exhausted played trooped off, “it’s a massacre.”

Not quite, but this will certainly a day that Yeovil will recall with relish for years to come.

Rochdale: Gilks, Evans, Simpkins, Grand, McClare, Burgess, Bertos (Betts 70min), Beech (McEvilly 70min), Shuker, McCourt (Doughty h-t), Connor

Yeovil Town: Weale, Lockwood, Pluck (Rodrigues 42min), Way, Johnson, Crittenden, O’Brien, Williams (Lindegaard 64min), Gall, Gosling (El Kholti 79min), Jackson

Scorers: Rochdale: Connor 45

Yeovil Town: Gall 26, 67, Johnson 55

Referee: M Warren

Attendance: 4,611

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