Mansfield Town 2 v Lincoln City 1 - BSBP

Saturday 3rd March 2012 - at Field Mill
Blue Square Bet Premier
Mansfield Town (0) 2
Ross Dyer 46, Gary Roberts 58
Lincoln City (0) 1
Mark McCammon 90+4
Admission £15 inc. a free ticket for MTFC v Fleetwood Town, on Tuesday, March 13th, 2012.
Programme £3,
Getting rid of Keith Haslam forever, priceless!!!
Attendance 4,830
Mansfield Town:
1 Alan MARRIOTT, 6 Martin RILEY, 7 Louis BRISCOE, 10 Matt GREEN, 15 Ross DYER, 16 Luke O'NEILL, 17 Ritchie SUTTON,
19 Adam SMITH (24 Lindon MEIKLE 24 mins), 21 Anthony HOWELL, 26 Exodus GEOHAGHON, 35 Gary ROBERTS (4 Jon WORTHINGTON 85 mins)
Unused subs -Matt RHEAD, 28 Ben HUTCHINSON, 23 Shane REDMOND
Lincoln City:
1 Joe ANYON, 3 John NUTTER, , 4 Rob WILLIAMS, 5 Josh GOWLING, 8 Alan POWER, 10 Jefferson LOUIS, 15 Simon RUSSELL (30 Louis ALMOND 61 mins), 16 Richard PACQUETTE (7 Jamie TAYLOR 62 mins), 26 Paul ROBSON, 31 Peter BORE (33 Mark McCAMMON 79 mins), 34 Tyrone THOMPSON
Unused subs - 2 Karlton WATSON, 21 Nick DRAPER
A goal, late into stoppage time, from Lincoln's Mark McCammon, did little but give the score a more respectable look for David Holdsworth's Imps side, who were already beaten by second half strikes from Ross Dyer and Gary Roberts inside the hour.
But the game was almost a peripheral sideshow to the main event this afternoon, in so much as Mansfield Town now own their own ground and no longer have the omnipresent threat and putrid stench of Keith Haslam hanging over them, like a large, repugnant, volatile, miserable, storm filled, dark cloud formation.
Unshackled, they can now move forwards towards the light at the end of the tunnel ... Woohoo!!!
It's been a long time coming and there must've been times, when even the staunchest of Stags followers had stopped believing this day would ever arrive.
Expectation levels are inevitably soaring now, I just hope people realise that getting out of this league is getting more and more difficult each and every year.
But lets put the reality check on hold for now ... it's party time!
Three points today, put the Stags just one point off the play off spots, dare we dream!?

I think the guy in this suit must've been

on drugs today, what a performance!

In a pre match interview (check out the This Is Lincolnshire website), it was stated that (ex Stags and current Imps manager) David Holdsworth has never disclosed the real reasons for his exit from Field Mill.
Well, in the spirit of standing in the way of a spot of historical revision, I will remind people why he departed ... he was sacked!
In his defence, Holdsworth wasn't as bad as Billy McEwan when he was in the Field Mill hot seat.
But that is like saying, I prefer being kicked up the arse to copping a size 10 in my knackers.
Holdsworth's after match interviews were always entertaining and quite often highly amusing too, but I don't think that was intentional.
Either way, welcome back David Holdsworth, I hope you enjoyed your return visit to Field Mill.
Look what you could have had!
Mansfield just about shaded the first half, without really getting out of second gear.
While Lincoln didn't really look up for it today, which was a shame for their travelling fans ... all 627 of them.
But, 15 minutes after the break, it was game over.
Ross Dyer opened the scoring a minute after the restart, getting on the end of a tantalising cross from Luke O'Neill, to beat Joe Anyon from close range.
Then on 58 minutes, Gary Roberts took a pass from Lindon Meikle, left several Lincoln players in his wake and put the game beyond the visitors reach with a great finish.
Shamelessly, some City fans left with over twenty minutes to go, just after the announcement was made that there would be a police escort to protect them en route to the station.
Hiding in 'Pets at Home' while your team is going through the motions in a lacklustre fashion and getting beat quite easily a couple of hundred yards away, and then sneaking around with shopping bags under your arms, hoping nobody will notice your presence, is an absurd way to behave.
Whatever goes on in 'The Mind of an Imp'?
In injury time, a muffled murmur of astonishment, emanated from the visiting fans, waking a good few of them up from the catatonic trances they had slipped into.
Far too late for it to make any difference, they had got a goal back through Mark McCammon.
Astonishingly, this spurred David Holdsworth into post match vocal action again, claiming there wasn't much between the teams and that you couldn't tell which team was the one who were chasing a play off place.
Oh really!?
Try being magnanimous this time Mr H.
Those efforts on target statistics don't lie.
Everybody, including your own fans, knows that even though Mansfield were hardly ripping up trees today, they didn't need to, because Lincoln City left it until the 94th minute before they even bothered to turn up.
The visitors were never in the game.
The Stags deserved to win.
The Imps got what they deserved too.
Big up n' massive reeeespect to Mr John Radford, he's delivered on his promise :-)
Mansfield Town are back!
Thanks John.

Left click team sheet image to enlarge

Coming up:
Tuesday 6th March, I won't be able to get to Cambridge United v Mansfield Town in time for kick off, so I'll choose somewhere nearer home instead.
Wednesday 7th March, Newark Town v Retford United, Notts Senior Cup looks the likeliest option.