Cheltenham Town fell to their heaviest defeat of the season as high-flying Yeovil put in a highly impressive performance at Huish Park.
The Robins did not play to their potential it must be said, but one could only admire the accurate passing at speed of the Yeovil team, who set a benchmark for teams such as Cheltenham Town to aspire to.
Polish striker Bartosz Tarachulski and central midfielders Darren Way and Lee Johnson had particularly good games, but it was former Bristol Rovers man Kevin Gall who won the man-of-the-match award for giving Jamie Victory a particularly difficult time of it down the Yeovil right-hand side.
Robins manager John Ward made one change to his team with Brian Wilson returning to the right-hand side of midfield in place of Ashley Vincent, who stepped down to the bench. Shane Duff had recovered from his knee injury of last week in time to take his place in the team.
Yeovil began the game strongly on a crisp, cold but sunny afternoon in front of a large and expectant crowd.
The home side had the first good chance of the contest after only five minutes when a cross from Kevin Gall found its way to the far post. Latvian international Andrejs Stolcers met it with a first time, left foot shot that had Shane Higgs stretching to touch around the post.
Cheltenham broke back quickly and won a free-kick wide on the left for a foul on JJ Melligan that earned Yeovil's Colin Miles the first yellow card of the game.
The free-kick itself came to nothing, although the Robins were able to maintain pressure on the Yeovil goal and when Grant McCann found Wilson with a cross-field pass, the former Stoke City man forced Glovers goalkeeper Chris Weale to make a diving stop.
Yeovil were committing men forward in numbers trying to pass the ball through and around Cheltenham's five-man midfield, but they were caught out in the 17th minute when a loose pass from Darren Way gave Martin Devaney the chance to run at the defence. Devaney saw an opportunity to shoot from 20 yards, the ball taking a heavy deflection off defender Terry Skiverton and evading the grasp of Weale on its way into the net.
The goal stung Yeovil into action and they applied heavy pressure in the minutes following the goal. Michael Rose saw a shot deflected over the crossbar then, from the resulting corner, Wilson cleared off the line from a headed effort by Tarachulski.
Cheltenham did quite well to hold Yeovil until the half-hour mark with only a couple of long-range efforts from Stolcers failing to trouble Higgs.
But the home side drew level with exactly 30 minutes gone, the goal originating in bizarre circumstances.
Higgs gathered the ball and moved to the edge of the box with Tarachulski checking back to stand only a couple of feet in front of him. Higgs attempted a drop-kick which hit the Yeovil man and bounced off to the left-hand edge of the area, Higgs assuming that referee Mick Russell would immediately award a free-kick for obstruction. However, Tarachulski had turned his back on the Cheltenham goalkeeper and looked about to move away. Tarachulski picked up the loose ball and crossed from the left. Phil Jevons missed an attempted overhead kick but the ball fell to Kevin Gall at the far post and he made no mistake in ramming home a shot to level the scores. Fierce protests followed with Higgs at the centre of them but the referee stood firm.
An already lively game now bubbling along very nicely and both goalkeepers were forced into some acrobatics in the minutes before half-time. First, Weale flew to his right to claw away a clever, curling free-kick from Grant McCann that appeared bound for the corner of the net. Then it was Higgs who kept the scores level with a flying stop from a shot by the dangerous Tarachulski.
But Higgs was left powerless two minutes before the break when Yeovil completed their comeback from that early setback and took the lead. From a defensive point of view it was a soft goal, however. Darren Way received the ball wide on the left and delivered a high, hanging cross. Phil Jevons stole in between Cheltenham's two centre-backs to meet the centre and direct a looping header into the net.
It was a lead that Yeovil deserved to take into the break having played the better football for much of the first half despite the efforts of a Cheltenham team who had worked hard to contain them.
The first chance of the second half fell to Devaney, who warmed the gloves of Weale two minutes after the break, but Yeovil settled quickly into their passing game once again.
Shane Duff collected the second booking of the game in the 56th minute for a late tackle on Lee Johnson, then Higgs dived to push aside a shot from Jevons after JJ Melligan had gifted him the ball inside his own penalty area.
With 62 minutes on the clock the home side came within a whisker of putting the game beyond Cheltenham's reach when a patient build-up of several passes ended with a cross from Way which Tarachulski headed against a post. Higgs then beat away a firm drive from Johnson before John Ward elected to make a double substitution, replacing Steve Guinan and JJ Melligan with Damian Spencer and Ashley Vincent.
The switch almost paid immediate dividends with McCann rattling the crossbar with a piledriver of a shot from all of 35 yards and Weale struggling to get close to it.
Cheltenham enjoyed one of their better spells of the game follwing the double substitution but they were unable to create any clear-cut chances and it was Yeovil who came back strongly in the final 10 minutes.
Wilson was forced to clear off the line again in the 80th minute, this time from a Skiverton header, but when the ball was played back into the box, substitute Arron Davies, a recent signing from Southampton, was on hand to blast in his second goal in as many games.
Four minutes from time Paul Terry, the brother of Chelsea and England star John Terry, scooped in the fourth goal after Davies had found him with a run down the right and pass into space on the edge of the box.
YEOVIL TOWN: Weale; Terry, Skiverton, Miles, Rose; Gall, Johnson, Way, Stolcers (Lindegaard 81); Jevons (Davies 69), Tarachulski (Guyett 89). Subs not used: Caceres, Collis
CHELTENHAM TOWN: Higgs; Gill, Caines, Duff, Victory; Wilson (Odejayi 81), Finnigan, Melligan (Vincent 64), McCann, Devaney; Guinan (Spencer 63). Subs not used: Brown, Bird
REFEREE: M.P. Russell (Hertfordshire)
ATTENDANCE: 7,320