Mansfield Town 2 v Port Vale 2 - EFL League 2

Thursday 26th December 2019

SkyBet EFL League Two
at Field Mill (One Call Stadium)
Mansfield Town (0) 2
Nicky Maynard 81
CJ Hamilton 90+3
Port Vale (0) 2
Nathan Smith 53
Leon Legge 66
Attendance: 5,565 (inc. 953 away fans)

Forty-five-year-old Graham Coughlan, took control of his first game in charge of Mansfield Town five days ago, when the Stags drew 1-1 at home against Northampton Town.

Coughlan moved to Field Mill, from League One promotion contenders Bristol Rovers, to replace John Dempster, who was recently relieved of his duties at the club he had served for almost nine years, as a player, Under 18 team manager, Head of Development Academy and laterally: as first-team manager.

Subsequently, Joe Dunne has also followed Coughlan from Bristol Rovers, to take up the assistant's role... at least the kit-man is going to get a bit more use out of all that training gear with those initials ironed onto it now.

John Dempster is a good friend of mine and though it's a fact of life that football is a results-based industry, wherein loyalty and even respect are disposable commodities and seldom a two-way street, it was very difficult for me personally to hear (and read) the quite mind-boggling level of vitriol and personal abuse aimed at 'JD'.

Some of it was sickening, almost to the point that I was actually glad when 'Demps' was eventually extricated from his position, because it meant he would no longer be subjected to any further anger fuelled ranting and raving, slights on his character and in a couple of cases, some (very) thinly veiled threats. One cretin even posted on a Facebook group that he was going to 'get rid' of any fans who disagreed with his anti-Dempster views. Ha, ha! Bring it on big lad! I bet that the regular worshippers of this particular parish think that you're really fookin' scary.

Though there are people who'll probably retrospectively deny it, there had been a viscous element of so-called supporters among the Stags faithful, who'd had it in for Dempster before a ball had even been kicked this season, and who desperately didn't want him to succeed, because such a scenario wouldn't have fitted in with their own personal narrative of the situation. 

Though these people were (initially) in the minority, they were (as per usual) the most outspoken and noisy, while getting their views out there, posturing, as is their wont, in a self-important and eminently undignified manner. You could still hear the same people gloating about the former manager's demise before today's game.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion about football (even long winded, self indulgent, bullshit bloggers), especially among the ranks of those who dig deep into their own pockets to follow and support any given club... it's an expensive lifestyle choice. But turning on and then savaging one of your own, who has done so much for your team of choice over the years, is a poor way of going about things.

Graham Coughlan for his part, seems to be a very astute appointment and though I'm gutted for John Dempster that his tenure in the hot-seat hasn't worked out, while also accepting that there was a genuine need for change at the club, I applaud the board of directors for bringing in a such a high calibre appointment, from outside the scope of the more obvious candidates that are currently available on the managerial merry-go-round circuit.

Mansfield Town have only ever plied their trade any higher than the bottom two divisions of the Football League, for one solitary season: 1977-78, and of course, they plummeted headlong into non-league football for five whole years not so long ago. But still, the expectancy level amongst some fans is off the scale, given the high level of investment in the club since they regained league status.

But the Stags started today in seventeenth place in the basement division, seven points and places behind this afternoon's visitors: Port Vale, who themselves arrived in Mansfield today five points off of the League Two play-off berths, as the festive season fixtures get underway and the battle for supremacy amongst the potential runners,riders and contenders just got real.

These two sides have already met twice this season, with both previous meetings being played at Vale Park and finishing 2-2. Though the Burslem based side did actually win the second of those two games on penalties, in the Leasing.Com Trophy, earlier this month.

Both teams have picked up two points from three games apiece during the interim, since that second round tie that was decided by a shoot-out, and while Mansfield were being held to a 1-1 draw at home on Saturday, the Valiants drew at home against Cheltenham Town by the same score. So current form suggested that today's encounter would be a closely run thing.

By using the aforementioned stats as a barometer to forecast this afternoon's game, then a 2-2 outcome was always likely to be on the cards. 
But, such a scoreline looked anything but a credible scoreline, with just nine minutes remaining, as a number of the home supporters began to drift off home, while the Vale hordes celebrated what looked, in all likelihood, to be an imminent and nailed on away win; after they had cruised into a seemingly unassailable lead, with a brace of second half strikes, from what was the sum total of their goal attempts on target after the interval.

However , the Stags finally showed their teeth, along with a whole load of grit, graft and tenacity, before sinking them firmly into the visitors rearguard... and against all odds, they somehow managed to salvage a hard won point, with a late comeback... a very late one.
It's been a wet, wet, wet couple of months in the northern hemisphere and consequently the Field Mill pitch was what you could best describe as a sticky wicket this afternoon, which was never going to be conducive to silky skills, mesmerising ball control or a high tempo passing game. Indeed, as the game unfolded it became a rare old mud n' guts battle, where the referee; Martin Coy, appeared to take the underfoot conditions into account, when dealing with some of the heftier challenges on show.

Mansfield were slightly the better side in the first half and they went close to taking the lead when Danny Rose went close with what looked like an easy chance from in the stands, but in reality, the slippery conditions were turning both goalmouths into a public rehearsal for a 'Bambi on Ice' pantomime at times... and staying upright was evidently difficult enough, let alone keeping the ball on target during a frenzied penalty area scramble.
As regards Rose and staying upright... the Vale fans (and a good few home supporters too), were not amused by his propensity to hit the deck quite as often as he did. When you've been fouled it's always good practice to make sure that referee has seen it, by going down like a dying swan, but when you haven't... get on with game Danny. Just saying.

Of course, there were people present who were full of praise for Rose for 'winning' so many free kicks. But I would counter that personally and question whether breaking up play on such a regular basis and losing momentum was a wise choice, given how poor the service that the Stags forwards got from set-pieces today was. 
The visitors had the best goal scoring opportunity of the first half, when David Amoo got onto the end of a left-wing cross from David Worrall, but headed narrowly wide... while Bobby Olejnik got down well to block Luke Joyce's long range strike, but was lambasted by an irate supporter a few rows down from me, for not holding onto the ball (a lightweight, muddy and slippery sphere with a life of it's own on a wet day like today). There ain't no pleasing some people.

Neal Bishop was inches away from firing the Stags ahead in the fifty third minute, when he took the ball down on his chest and drilled the ball just past the wrong side of the upright. But from the resulting goal-kick, the visitors switched play to the other end of the pitch and scored.

Nathan Smith made a deep run in Mansfield territory, in tandem with David Amoo, who picked up a pass from former Mansfield player Will Atkinson, before squaring the ball into Smith's path, where he diverted it past Olejnik.
And the Valiants doubled their lead thirteen minutes later, when their captain: Leon Legge, poked the ball over the line, amidst a scrummage of bodies after Tom Pope had rolled the ball across the face of the Stags goal from a right-wing corner.

Atkinson had a third goal for Vale ruled out, but it barely seemed to matter at the time, because to all intents and purposes, Vale only needed to keep their nerve from now on in and they were home and dry. The Stags tried to force the issue from thereon-in,but were having no luck at all in front of goal, despite the introduction of both Otis Khan and Nicky Maynard.

But in the eighty first minute, the home side's fortunes changed, when Cristian Montaño miscued a clearance from Ryan Sweeney's long ball into the visitors area and set up Maynard, who buried the ball past Scott Brown from fifteen yards.

The dynamic of the crowd, discounting those who'd seen enough and buggered of home already, changed in an instant and the Field Mill faithful cranked up the noise level, which hitherto had been dominated by by the 953 Valiants supporters in the North Stand (or Halliday Lighting Stand, as it is apparently called these days).

The announcement that there would be four minutes of added time, was greeted by a throaty roar, and right on cue, in the very last one of those additional minutes, Jacob Mellis rolled the ball forward into the path of CJ Hamilton, who motored forward into the left hand side of the Vale area and hit an angled cross into the six yard box, that found it's way into Brown's goal, just inside the right-hand post.

Was it actually a shot? I doubt it very much, but the celebrating Stags fans wouldn't have been worried about that.

And while the home support cheered, while the Vale fans looked on in disbelief... these two sides had drawn 2-2 yet again.

FT: Mansfield Town 2 v Port Vale 2