Mansfield Town - that sinking feeling

I will never forget the goal that effectively relegated Mansfield from the Football League.
It was one of those goals you see on compilation DVDs. One of those once-a-season efforts that defies explanation.
As soon as Jamie Yates’ 40-yard lob from out on the right touchline had beaten the back-pedaling Jason White to nestle in the back of the net, I knew it was all over for the Stags.
A 1-0 defeat against Rotherham, coupled with results elsewhere, all but sealed their fate. The worst was confirmed by Chester’s 0-0 draw with Stockport last night.
Relegation is something everyone who follows Mansfield hoped they would never have to contemplate.
But, deep down, I, like many others, always feared it would happen eventually – whether this season, next season, or the season after that.
Because ever since the play-off final defeat of 2004 to Huddersfield, and the break up of that team, things have been on a steady downward spiral.
While the best players have been sold on or not offered high enough wages to persuade them to stay (Richard Barker and Giles Coke to name two), there has been little money available to replace them.
These days, you get what you pay for in football, so it is little wonder the likes of Peter Shirtliff, Billy Dearden and Paul Holland have struggled with the budget they have been asked to work with.
The Conference – or Blue Square Premier to give it its sponsored name – is going to be a tough division for Mansfield to get out of.There are a lot of good sides who are prepared to pay out decent money to get into (or back into) the Football League.
I only hope that whoever owns the club next season – Haslam, Batchelor or A N Other realises investment is desperately needed dot get the club going in the right direction again.
If not, I fear the Stags could be in the Conference for the long haul.

How Stags broke their duck

You could put forward plenty of reasons for Mansfield ending their long wait for a home win, but personally I reckon it was down to the ducks.
No, I’m not going completely mad, just referring to the trio of birds who mistook the Field Mill pitch for the banks of the pond just across Quarry Lane.
Early arrivers for the game with Wrexham would have seen our feathered friends waddling around quite happily – even when the players came out for their warm-ups.
By the time the game kicked off, the ducks were nowhere to be seen, but I think they most definitely brought the luck the team was missing.
Before their appearance, the Mansfield side had lost ten and drawn the other one of their last 11 home games dating back to before the turn of the year.
Yet they arrive on the scene and the Stags, well, break their duck.
Not only that, the fortune that has been so obviously absent over the last three months returned too in the shape of a gift-wrapped penalty to set the team on their way to a 2-1 victory.
Sheer coincidence? More than likely.
But at a time when the Mansfield need all the rub of the green they can get, I, for one, would not be complaining if they make a return visit.

See Monday’s Evening Post for full analysis on tomorrow’s Mansfield-Barnet clash.