Basford United 1 v Mansfield Town XI 2 - PSF

Tuesday 28th July 2015
Pre Season Friendly
Basford United (1) 1
Fabian Smith pen 27
Mansfield Town (1) 2
Darren Fletcher 33, Kane Baldwin 86
Admission £5. Att: 189

An entertaining first half basked in evening sunshine and a less than enthralling second, played out under dark foreboding clouds emptying gallons of rain all over Greenwich Avenue, with a twist in the plot right at the end. Provided a compelling enough, if not entirely riveting night's entertainment on the outskirts of the fair city of Nottingham.

Basford United have a new clubhouse on site, inside the ground, where I had almost half a hour to kill on my arrival, so it would have been rude not to help out the local economy by purchasing one or two beers, in the company of the Stags loyals who had made the short journey across.
After which I spent the remainder of the night in the (as always) charming and affable company of my good pal Mr Malcolm Storer.
It was good to catch up with the 'Bearded Wonder' and put the world to rights.
It was also nice to catch up with Neil who works tirelessly for the Basford cause.
A couple of season's ago I visited Greenwich Avenue frequently to run the rule over Wayne Scott's all conquering Under 19s team, but haven't been able to get across as much recently. Though I did manage to see Wayne's similarly impressive Carlton Town Under 21's last season, before he stepped up to manage the Millers first team.

A few of the Mansfield 'heads' in attendance, were a little bit concerned and surprised that there were no more actual (exclusively) first team friendlies planned before the season starts for real, but I guess Adam Murray feels that he has had enough time to assess his newly built squad's strengths and weaknesses now and sees the remaining couple of games as an opportunity for the club's younger players to shine, while his first picks are going through a rigorous regime of double training sessions; in fact he spoke at a press conference earlier today about how some fringe players would now have to up the ante if they wanted to stay in contention for first team places, given the number of new signings he has made, since they broke onto the scene last season.

Right, there was a game as well...
Sam Wilson, drafted in at the eleven and a half(th) hour, to play in goal for this young Stags team, was called into action inside the first twenty minutes, when he got down well to save a penalty from Tyrell Shannon, after Shannon had been upended in the area by Connor Green.
Mansfield were on level terms on 33 minutes, when Darren Fletcher, who had already gone close once, latched onto a defence splitting pass from Drew Gibson, and finished coolly from just inside United's penalty area.

Both goalscorers had chances after the break to put their sides ahead, but Smith skied a great chance over the bar, and Fletcher was thwarted by the Basford keeper Saul Deeney, as was Anthony Dwyer.
With four minutes left on the clock, the game looked to be petering out towards an all square, 1-1 conclusion, but when the substitute Basford keeper, Jake Wood blocked a shot from Dwyer and the ball fell kindly for Kane Baldwin, he made no mistake from ten yards out and won the game for the Stags.
FT: Basford United 1 v Mansfield Town XI 2