AFC Mansfield 2 v Handsworth 4 - NCEL Prem

Tuesday 29th October 2019
Toolstation NCEL - Premier Division
AFC Mansfield (1) 2
Jack Warner 31
Ross Duggan 75
Handsworth FC (3) 4
Joshua Dacre 3
Ehsan Mohammed 14
Johnny Pugh 40
Leon Howarth 90
Attendance: 57

It's a real shame that only Fifty seven spectators witnessed this lively game, played out between two sides, who are both currently going through something of a transitional phase, but who are evidently sinking the foundations to underpin a tilt at better times ahead... while trying to play the beautiful game an entertaining manner, that doesn't even pay lip service, to the kind of direct, long ball, strong-arm ugliness that some teams who compete at this level, employ as a means to an end.
Seriously though, I ask you... is this paltry kind of turnout, really the sum total of people who could be arsed to make the effort to head to the Forest Town Arena, to watch two of the friendliest and most entertaining sides in the NCEL lock horns tonight?
I can't imagine that there is a great deal of anything else to do in Forest Town on a wet and miserable October Tuesday night.

When Mansfield visited Handsworth last month, the game ended in a 2-2 draw. And it was apparent from the outset, that a good few goals, were most likely to be on the cards tonight too... in fact, the first one of them duly arrived after just three minutes.
Johnny Pugh had already had a shot deflected high and wide of the Bulls goal, as the visitors started on the front foot, and forced a couple of early corners.
Josh Dacre got into the spirit of the impending Halloween celebrations, when he ghosted his way into the hosts area and tricked the Bulls defence, by treating himself to a crashing shot, from eight yards out, after Marley Grant had cleverly flicked a right wing flag kick into his path.
Jordan Annable got forward well on the right for Mansfield, as they looked for an immediate response, but Ross Duggan, the former Handsworth striker, had strayed marginally offside when the subsequent cross reached him.

As an aside, this NCEL fixture could've been dubbed as 'THE66POW Derby' because, at the outset of the season, I chipped in to sponsor a player from both of these teams. Granted, one of them has jumped ship to take up a role with the management team at Worksop Town (good luck there James) and the other one was suspended tonight... but hey! It's the thought that counts.
Handsworth were chipping away at the Bulls defence and having been thwarted twice by Hugo Warhurst deservedly doubled their lead after fourteen minutes, when Pugh, was picked out by Leon Osborne, just inside the Mansfield half, before battling forward, showing no small amount of stamina and close control, all the way to the dead ball line, before delivering a dipping cross that found it's way beyond the far post, all the way through as far as Ehsan Mohammed, who curled in an unstoppable bending shot, that bulged the net just inside the left hand post.

Assembled at the Forest Town Arena tonight, were a collection of some of the finest goalkeeping talents, currently plying their trade in the NCEL, but I doubt that they could've kept out Mohammed's effort between them, if they had all have been inside the six yard box, he hit his strike with so much venom and accuracy.
To their credit, the Bulls could have let their heads drop at this point, given the way that the Ambers had been stroking a succession of passes around them and taking control of the game for long spells... but they didn't.
Brett Lucas dispatched a statement of his team's intent, with a twenty five yard free kick, that narrowly cleared the bar... and Ben Townsend did well to restrict Duggan's options, while causing the Bulls front man to pause momentarily, before claiming the ball at his feet. But Mansfield were growing into the game more... and just after the half hour mark, Jack Warner took a long clearance from Warhurst down in his stride, before motoring into the Ambers area and tucking his shot through the narrowest of gaps, just inside the right hand post, to half his side's deficit.

Having claimed an 'assist' for himself, Warhurst was soon in the thick of things again, denying both Pugh and Anthony Mackie, but as the visitors dictated the flow of the game, across the edge of Mansfield's defensive last third, the ball was nudged forward by Mohammed, releasing Pugh, who took the ball past Lucas, making himself time and space to pick his spot from the edge of the area and restored the Ambers two goal cushion, just before half time.
HT: Bulls 1 v Ambers 3
Pugh had another chance to increase the visitors lead right at the start of the second half, but it was the Bulls who were in the ascendancy when play restarted.
Duggan and Ishmael Dawson, both tested Townsend, but the visitors keeper kept them both at bay... while Grant Ryan wasn't far away from grabbing a second goal for the home side... that at this point, certainly looked to be coming.
Brandon Webster came on as a second half substitute for the Bulls and was proving to be a proper handful for the visitors... it was he who broke away on the right, before knocking a square ball to Duggan, who turned the ball past Townsend from just outside the six yard box. Game on!?

The highly rated Leon Howarth also entered the fray during the second half. Subsequently, his input to the Ambers forward play from the sixty third minute onward, was immense.
Both teams were still going at it, hammer and tongs, as the game ebbed and flowed one way and then the other.
Warhurst bravely went down at the feet of Joe Parkin, to wrestle the ball out of harms way, while Townsend kept out Duggan's effort at full stretch at one end (the Ambers keeper must be worth a good few points to them over a season, in this sort of form), while Howarth went close, twice, at the other.
In added time, with Mansfield chucking everything they had forward, in pursuit of a last ditch equaliser, a hit and hope clearance landed at the feet of Howarth near the centre circle, who raced off towards the Bulls goal; Warhurst bust a gut, charging out of his area to intercept the ball, but the Ambers number 12, went round him and hit the unguarded net from all of forty yards out. Game over!
FT: AFC Mansfield 2 v Handsworth 4

By heck! There's never a dull moment when these two teams go head to head.

Handsworth deserved the three points, but Mansfield ran them very close, particularly in the second half of a game, that in my humble estimation, balanced out roughly 40/60 in the favour of the visitors.

The Ambers face a trip to Hemsworth Miners Welfare at the weekend, for another NCEL Premier Division fixture, while the Bulls have a 'home' tie in the FA Vase Second Round against Long Buckby, which is actually being played at the Lido Ground, home of Clipstone FC, which is roughly a mile away from the Forest Town Arena.