Clipstone (0) A v Mansfield Town (7) A - Fundraising Friendly - Abandoned after 45 minutes - Power Failure

Tuesday 28th November 2017
Fundraising Friendly Match
at the Worksop Van Hire Stadium/Lido Ground
Clipstone FC (0) A
Mansfield Town (7) A
Krystian Pearce 12
Calum Butcher 14, 24, 45
Paul Anderson 24 pen, 28
Alfie Potter 40
Admission £5. Programme £1.50
Attendance 451
Abandoned at half time - power failure

Clipstone:
Doncaster, Thomas, Radford, Taylor, Millns, Webster, Curtis, Homer, Hawley, Curzon, Gregory
Unused subs - Burbanks, Hubbard, Vickers, Limb, Morgan, Bullock, Stephenson
Mansfield Town:
Olejnik, Benning, Pearce, Digby, Mirfin, Atkinson, Potter, Anderson, Spencer, Butcher, Thomas
Unused subs - Wilson, Angol, Sterling-James, Hamilton, Healey, Wilder
Match officials:
David Coote, David Plowright, Steve Meredith

Clipstone FC's premises suffered from vandalism damage, during a recent break in at their Lido Ground. As a consequence, the local non league fraternity have gathered around to help out their fellow NCEL club in their hour of need... and upon hearing the Cobras bad news, the Stags first team manager, Steve Evans, rang them up and offered to send a team across to play in fundraising friendly match.

And true to his word, it was a strong side that started tonight's game.
Evans' assistant Paul Raynor oversaw proceedings from the bench, as Mansfield''s players, spurred on by the knowledge that places were up for grabs in this coming weekend's FA Cup first round game against Guiseley AFC, set about putting on an entertaining and attacking displaying.

Lee Angol was scheduled to play forty five minutes after half time, but sadly for the host club (and Angol), during the interval there was a problem with the electricity supply to the ground, which cast everybody in attendance into darkness... and with no guarantee when 'Western Power' could actually get their on call men on site to rectify the situation, there was no option but to abandon the game.
Hopefully Clipstone FC will be entitled to some sort of recompense from the power company for the loss of earnings through the warm food and drinks they were selling, which were proving to be extremely popular among the crowd of 451 who had turned out to support this game on a bitterly cold November night. There'a definitely a sprinkling snow on it's way imminently... prepare thyself for a whole load of fixtures upheaval any time soon.

As well as the first team players on the bench, there was also likely to be an opportunity for two of the Stags successful Under 18 team players who have moved up through the club's ranks: Cameron Healey and Sam Wilson (who are both currently on loan at Corby town) to get a run out, along with the Under 18's current captain Henri Wilder, who is in his second year with the academy side and earning rave reviews this season with some powerhouse performances. Luke Morgan, another of the current crop of Stags youngsters, was on the bench for Clipstone, where he is getting some work experience, to supplement his time at Brooksby College, the home of the Mansfield Town development teams.
Although the result itself was of no consequence in the grand scheme of things, and in reality it merely demonstrated the large gulf in the respective league positions and standings of these two teams, it has to be said that the home side were on the receiving end of a bit of a going over during the first half.

A 56 page special edition programme
was issued for tonight's game

Alas, because of the power outage, we'll never know if the Stags would've kept the ante going for another forty five minutes, or if they might have taken their foot off the gas after the interval, like they did against that team from the dark side of the M1 on Saturday.
For what it's worth, the Stags goal scoring efforts panned out thus...
After the Cobras Gareth Curtis fired an early effort into the side netting from twelve yards:
0-1 Paul Digby's shot took a deflection off of a defender and went behind for a corner, from which Alfie Potter picked out Krystian Pearce's near post run and he headed the ball just inside the right hand post after twelve minutes.
0-2 Mal Benning crossed to Calum Butcher, who crashed the ball past Gary Doncaster from deep inside the Clipstone penalty area.

0-3 Benning swapped passes with Jimmy Spencer inside the Cobras area and was unceremoniously upended. From the resulting penalty, as Doncaster moved to his right and Paul Anderson dispatched the spot kick into the other corner, 17 minutes in.

4-0 24 minutes. Butcher once again found the target with an emphatic shot from just outside the area, after Alfie Potter went close twice.

5-0 Anderson took a right wing cross from Digby down on his chest and hooked an overhead shot into the back of the net, from just inside the area in the 28th minute.

6-0 40 minutes, a sublime and unstoppable shot by Potter from eighteen yards out fizzed into the roof of the net

7-0 Butcher set up Spencer inside the last minute of the first half, but his effort crashed off the crossbar... before Digby delivered yet another great ball in from out on the right to Butcher, who completed his hat-trick from inside the six yard box.

The main thing is, that football was the winner tonight. As Mansfield Town took time out for their busy schedule to help out one of their neighbouring non league clubs.
Clipstone were perfect hosts and everything ran like clockwork on the night, except for issues that were outside the control of the club. The hospitality and welcome was great (as per usual), the fifty six page programme (that completely sold out) was very impressive and with scores of youngsters attending free of charge, which must have pushed the attendance up even higher, the volunteers at the Lido Ground catered for everyone present admirably and they should be justifiably proud of their efforts. I hope that they have raised a lot of money from this friendly game, but if you couldn't attend and would still like to make a donation, then feel free to click the link HERE and make a contribution to this worthy cause.
FT: Clipstone (0) A v Mansfield Town (7) A
Good luck to Clipstone FC, both on and off the field of play, for the remainder of the season.