Unity at Stags is encouraging for future

MANSFIELD Town are a club who have taken a hell of a lot of criticism over recent seasons.
During the Keith Haslam era, the Stags never seemed to be far from the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
And even though the new board have been in charge for just a matter of months, they have already had their problems, not least when the club were deducted four points for fielding ineligible players early in the season.
But for getting their game on against York City on Saturday, Mansfield deserve a fantastic amount of credit and praise.
Because, encouragingly, the 48 hours leading up to the match saw the club – supporters, board, stewards, administration staff, groundsman and others – unite as one.
When the pitch and stadium as a whole was covered with a five-inch blanket of snow on Thursday morning, it would have been easy for Mansfield to give up there and then and announced that the game would be called off.
It would have been a particular temptation to postpone the game given the fact so many other clubs had given up on their games a long time in advance.
But the Stags gave the match every chance to go ahead and were deservedly rewarded in the end.
Yes, the pitch was not ideal, yes all parts of the ground were not open and yes, some areas around the ground were still slippy.
Given that Friday’s overnight temperature went down to –5C, though, it was a miracle those involved made conditions even close to acceptable.
Of course, much of the recognition should go to the hardy Mansfield fans who came down to Field Mill at 8am in the morning to shift the snow.
Without their help, there would have been zero chance of play. They showed their passion for their team stretches far beyond turning up every week to sing the Stags’ praises or register their disapproval.
Having got the go ahead to play, there was still a job to be done by David Holdsworth and his side - and they obliged.
It may not have been particularly pretty, but the 1-0 win was enough to lift Mansfield into the top half of the table just a few weeks after the possibility of them dropping into the relegation zone.
Things at Field Mill finally look to be on the up.

Read your Histon-Mansfield preview in Tuesday's Evening Post.

Adlington legacy just won't last

CALL it coincidence, but Water Meadows in Mansfield was packed yesterday morning after Rebecca Adlington’s Olympic gold medal swim on Monday.
Admittedly, the ‘baths’, as they call them round my way, are significantly busier during the school holidays.
It was also raining outside, so there was not much chance of getting out on the local park with jumpers for goalposts either.
But I can’t remember ever having to queue almost out the door just to get in.
Quite often, when I nip down for my bi-weekly swim, I have a lane all to myself. Or at least there is only one other person lapping me every so often.
This time, I had to share a lane with five or six other people, a whole clutch who I had never seen before (you get to know the same old faces who go all the time).
It could only lead me to thinking that a brilliant 400m freestyle victory in Beijing by Mansfield’s Becky – especially as I heard folks talking about it when I stopped for a rest – had inspired the mad dash to jump in the pool.
With the number of obese in Mansfield and across Notts on the increase, I would love to think I will now have more company on a regular basis.
What would particularly please me is to see more kids diving in at the deep end. Statistics show 12.4% per cent of youngsters starting school in 2006-2007 were overweight.
But while Becky will no doubt act as a superb inspiration for the next generation of swimmers on excellence programmes across Notts, I fear it is not going to lead to a long-term, swimming-related fitness drive.
Like in the aftermath of Wimbledon and the 2005 Ashes, the craze is unlikely to last.
The swimming costumes and goggles will slowly be confined back to the draw, alongside the tennis racquets and cricket bat.

Follow Rebecca Adlington's bid for more glory in the Evening Post

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.