Mansfield Town 2 v Scunthorpe United 0 - EFL League Two

Saturday 7th September 2019
SkyBet EFL League Two
at Field Mill/the One Call Stadium
MansfieldTown (1) 2
Matt Preston 31
Danny Rose 54
Scunthorpe United (0) 0
Attendance: 4,772 (inc. 554 away fans)

Mansfield Town:
Logan (GK), Preston, Pearce (C), MacDonald, Mellis (Bishop 69), Maynard (Benning 80), Shaughnessy, Sweeney, Gordon, Hamilton, Rose.
Unused subs - Stone (GK) Khan, Tomlinson, Sterling-James, Smith.
Scunthorpe United:
Watson (GK), Clarke, Lund, Songo’o, Butler (C), McGahey, Slater (Colclough 46), Brown, Miller (van Veen 46), Eisa, Proctor.
Unused subs - Eastwood (GK), Gilliead, McArdle, Bedeau, McAtee.

The Stags climbed to twelfth in the table, following this scrappy home win against the Football League's bottom club Scunthorpe United, on an afternoon where the result was all that really mattered, as John Dempster's side look to kick-start their campaign, after a whole juxtaposition of unfortunate elements have conspired against the recently appointed Stags manager to make his introduction to first team management a less than welcoming one.

It's been a bit of a baptism of fire for Demps, which won't have been made any more pleasant for him, given that a notoriously fickle and impatient element of the Stags crowd, have already taken to circling above his head after only half a dozen games in charge.
Dempster has been at the club for eight years, serving them well as both a player and the head of the successful youth development academy... yet, quite sickeningly, some fans have turned on him already, both vocally and through social media platforms, even though, following today's win, the Stags are now just two points away from a play off berth... and have only this week recruited two new signings, a part of a concerted effort towards digging themselves out of a potential hole.

A goal in each half was enough to cement the three points this afternoon, the first coming when Jacob Mellis and CJ Hamilton combined to set up Matt Preston just after the half hour mark, who stretched to steer the ball past Rory Watson at the back post.
And Danny Rose added a the second in the fifty fourth minute, when he took advantage of a mix up between Watson and Andy Butler, and pounced to net his sixth goal of the season.

I'm not suggesting for one minute that anybody should ever be immune from criticism, but seven games in, two defeats, two points outside the promotion play-offs, a prolific striker with six goals to his name, home grown youngsters being given a chance to shine (because they're good enough, and not because the manager is being told to select them, as somebody, rather stupidly suggested on a forum)... and still being in a good enough position to launch and maintain a promotion challenge, against a backdrop of unavoidable misfortune, and missing in action main-stay players, is hardly an appropriate time to turn on people and start conducting a witch-hunt. Is it!?

FT: Mansfield Town 2 v Scunthorpe United 0

Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned, but weren't football grounds a better place to go, when supporters used to turn up and get on the opposition's back. and 'noise up' the away fans instead of putting the boot in on their own team's players and manager?
Today's win wasn't pretty... but neither are you mi' duck. Just saying.