diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index e37afeda2..4b28899b2 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -64,6 +64,11 @@ New features added
   - The default value for ``htmlhelp_basename`` is now the project
     title, cleaned up as a filename.
 
+  - The new ``trim_footnote_reference_space`` config value mirrors
+    the docutils config value of the same name and removes the
+    space before a footnote reference that is necessary for reST
+    to recognize the reference.
+
 * Builders:
 
   - New builder for Qt help collections, by Antonio Valentino.
diff --git a/doc/config.rst b/doc/config.rst
index dd25cf223..8fc7978c3 100644
--- a/doc/config.rst
+++ b/doc/config.rst
@@ -261,7 +261,14 @@ Project information
    A boolean that decides whether :dir:`moduleauthor` and :dir:`sectionauthor`
    directives produce any output in the built files.
 
+.. confval:: trim_footnote_reference_space
 
+   Trim spaces before footnote references that are necessary for the reST parser
+   to recognize the footnote, but do not look too nice in the output.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 0.6
+
+   
 .. _html-options:
 
 Options for HTML output
diff --git a/sphinx/config.py b/sphinx/config.py
index e1eb8ec8f..a3de68f5a 100644
--- a/sphinx/config.py
+++ b/sphinx/config.py
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ class Config(object):
         default_role = (None, True),
         add_function_parentheses = (True, True),
         add_module_names = (True, True),
+        trim_footnote_reference_space = (False, True),
         show_authors = (False, True),
         pygments_style = ('sphinx', False),
         highlight_language = ('python', False),
diff --git a/sphinx/environment.py b/sphinx/environment.py
index a654cb778..991fab72d 100644
--- a/sphinx/environment.py
+++ b/sphinx/environment.py
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ default_settings = {
 
 # This is increased every time an environment attribute is added
 # or changed to properly invalidate pickle files.
-ENV_VERSION = 27
+ENV_VERSION = 28
 
 
 default_substitutions = set([
@@ -517,6 +517,8 @@ class BuildEnvironment:
 
         self.docname = docname
         self.settings['input_encoding'] = self.config.source_encoding
+        self.settings['trim_footnote_reference_space'] = \
+            self.config.trim_footnote_reference_space
 
         class SphinxSourceClass(FileInput):
             def read(self):