Field Mill, Mansfield
Mansfield Town (0) 0 v. Leicester City (0) 0
(Hmm, why do people still put the half time score in brackets for goal-less draws?)
Admission £10 (all areas) Programme £2 A4 magazine covering all 4 of the Stags home friendlies. I sat upstairs in the posh seats, I didn't fancy my chances of avoiding the 'scattered showers' in the lower tier.
In which Mansfield Town of the Blue Square Premier (Conference) hosted Leicester City of the Coca-Cola Championship (Football League Division Two in old money).
Prior to kick off there was a tribute read out by the club Chaplain and respectful minutes applause observed for James Sheppard, the 54 year old who passed away as a result of injuries sustained in an unsavoury incident in Mansfield town centre a couple of weeks ago.He was a Mansfield Town steward and well known to a lot of people at Field Mill.
His daughter has posted on a website set up in his memory that she would prefer people not to comment about the people allegedly involved on the night Jimmy suffered fatal head injuries as it could jeopardise their court hearing and provide them with the defence of having an unfair and prejudiced trial ... the law beggars belief at times, but she's right, so I won't comment further on the events of that tragic night.
Rest in peace Jimmy, lets hope that justice is done mate.
Click on picture to read programme article in full.Tonight, the Stags paraded their new away strip (see above right, she wasn't playing btw), the new kit sponsor is Hymas Homes, run by Steve Hymas.
If some of you think you recognise his name from elsewhere, you probably do. He's the guy who was fined in court for punching the previous chairman of Mansfield Town on the afternoon of the Stags last football league match before they were relegated to the BSP.
Good lad! ;-)
With black shorts and socks giving the new away kit the appearance of the Argentina national strip, it was easy from the dizzy heights of the West Stand upper tier to mistake the diminutive Ryan Williams for Maradona ... or at least one of those little orphans she's been adopting of late.
I was surprised to read that Andy King was in Leicester's starting line up, but quite relieved to see it wasn't actually the ex Stags and Swindon manager (and Everton player) but a younger and infinitely fitter namesake. Alongside him in midfield was Richie Wellens, a recent £1.2 million transfer capture from Doncaster Rovers. On this showing I can see why the 'Donny' fans I work with are gutted to have lost him to the Foxes, he bossed the first half and if the forward line he was providing a string of quality passes to would have had half his guile, City would have been well ahead by half time. Max Gradel on the left for City was a constant menace too.
In the second half Mansfield kept trying to make in-roads into their 'illustrious' (well, sort of, relatively speaking) visitors box, with Williams and Briscoe looking especially lively and they did actually put the ball into the back of the net on 51 minutes through Daryl Clare, but the linesman flagged for offside.
The last twenty minutes saw the requisite pre season friendly turn over of players via unlimited substitutions which broke up the flow of the game somewhat.
Jason Bradley, a big powerful 20 year old trialist (from the north Notts peoples republic of Retford) came on late in the game ... if running into opponents at speed and sending them clattering to the floor is any measure of talent, this lad will go far - get stuck in son!
In fact, the Stags appear to have bolstered their ranks with a few big, strong lads over the summer, which is probably what they need to get out of the Conference in the right direction, it bodes well actually.
Ryan Williams must think he's turned up on the set of 'Land of the Giants' when he goes in to training.
Weathering the two storms in the first half - the one Leicester's midfield provided and the one those grey skies kept emptying over Mansfield tonight - and then building on that platform and almost snatching the result from a team placed several rungs of the football ladder higher than the BSP showed MTFC have the resiliance and fighting qualities that will be required in 2009-10.
So far, so good for this virtually rebuilt team.
I was hoping that Leicester would be parading Robbie Neilson their new signing from Hearts tonight, but he wasn't even on the bench (maybe it was too crowded) which was a real shame. But the sighting of one of the Chuckle Brothers in the crowd sort of made up for it and he was almost (very nearly) calm and tolerant towards me and the guy sat the other side of him when we decided to torment him with a barrage of "To me, to you!" at wearingly frequent intervals throughout the game. Don't let his scowl fool you, he loves the attention.You're a star Barry.
Bring Paul in future and you could do the half time draw or something.
By the way, I forgot to ask - are you really brothers?
