Hear John interviewed about the new Stags book

To celebrate the release of Mansfield Town: the end of an Era  next month, Chad’s book blogger Bill Purdue has interviewed John. You can listen to the interview on Bill’s blog here.

Daydreaming of open top bus rides!

WHAT a week for Mansfield sport! Stags sit fifth in the table just two points off the summit and Becky Adlington’s homecoming party on Tuesday night was something everyone there will remember forever.

It was impossible to squeeze your way into the Market Place from certain approaches as 15,000 flag-waving, cheering locals acknowledged Becky’s amazing Olympic double.

And while enjoying the chance to applaud her I must admit I also stood there daydreaming and wondering how many Stags fans among that crowd were hoping, like me,  to see Mansfield Town on the same open top bus drive again in May, celebrating gaining promotion back to the Football League.

In all honesty I wouldn’t bank any money on it becoming reality. But that is not taking away from the excellent and unexpected early points return from Billy McEwan’s rag-tag side.

All any of us wanted was our club to survive the summer and begin the BSP season. We survived by the skin of our teeth and knew that McEwan’s late appointment and the even later addition of available players meant we were facing a year of consolidation and even survival at this level.

Don’t forget McEwan could only sign players that were still available and many of them were far from match fit with no pre-season under their belts.

Some say that, without a proper full pre-season, it is nigh on impossible to really reach your potential once the games start. So to take 10 points from the first five games and be within touching distance of the top is remarkable. So for those who feel they need to have a go at the side for not being more impressive, I can only ask – what do you want?

These players are largely strangers to us and to each other. They are not match fit. And yet they are performing whole-heartedly for the cause. Let’s be grateful for what we have right now.

Fitness is a vicious circle. Having lost the opportunity to gradually build it up in the summer, it is so hard to sharpen players’ fitness once the games start coming thick and fast. Push them too hard and niggling injuries will creep in. And they need time to fully recover from games. It is a fine balancing act.

It is true we have not looked fully convincing over a 90 minute period yet. Indeed, Barrow aside, Lady Luck has been quite good to us so far this campaign.

But we are trying to play football the right way and no one could be accused of not trying for the cause while wearing the shirt. At times we show that, of all the players out of work when the manager came in, McEwan has picked out some who can obviously play. But at other times we look like what we are – a bunch of lads thrown together only a few weeks ago.

Maybe having such a good start is not the best way for the players to keep the ‘Moaning Minnies’ off their backs. Maybe it is just piling pressure on themselves to stay in the promotion hunt when maybe a poor start followed by a decent run later in the season would have kept certain hyper-critical fans happier. Most of us prefer it how it is, though, thank you.

Games so far have been scrappy but exciting with goals-a-plenty. And, let’s be honest, the standard of the BSP hasn’t been as high as we thought it might be so far. But we do have some bigger name clubs to play and a long, long way to go.

Congratulations to Nathan Arnold and Jon D’Laryea for their selection to the England non-League squad this week.

To represent your country at anything at any level is something hard-earned and to feel proud about. D’Laryea has already shown us he is finally getting back to the player we had before his injury problems. And Arnold has just begun to show glimpses of the pace and trickery that will terrify BSP defenders this season once he has got into his full stride.

Here it is!

Well, here it is!

After much worrying, tears, delight, excitement – every emotion going really – the football season is here and Stags are in the Blue Square Premier.

It is still a difficult one to get the head around and probably will be for a while.
The results will be on the radio on Saturday tea time – but where are the Stags?

The ITV goals round-up – where are the Stags?

The answer is – they are down but not out. Gone for the moment but far from  forgoten.

For every one of you who goes to Ebbsfleet on Saturday, get behind them and let the new team, the new manager and the new owners that you are 100 per cent behind them and what they are trying to do.

Apologies to the chap who rang me up to call me pathetic before hanging up on me this morning as I had not published directions to Ebbsfleet in this week’s Chad. Welcome to non-League mate – buy yourself a TomTom or an AA road map.

Unfortunately for me I am away this weekend – had it booked nearly a year ago – and will miss the big kick-off.

In fact I am currently only scheduled to miss two games on dates long pre-booked – and both have turned into long haul away game days! But it was never deliberate.

So I will be relying on texts from friends as I doubt Five Live will be keeping me informed of the Stags’ progress.

But I will be back for the home game with Histon on Tuesday. That will be an interesting one to see what sort of crowd we get.

All those stay-aways who boycotted against Keith Haslam will presumably be back in Field Mill and we can put the fear of god into Histon. Let’s hope so anyway.
It will not be long before you can feel that chill in the air and the Bovril stalls will be doing a roaring trade.

Whatever this season brings I am just happy we still have a club and anything else will be a bonus.

Bily McEwan’s track record suggests he can bring success back here given time.
Even Alex Ferguson would struggle to conjure up a gelling squad out of thin air on next to no money.

But everyone I have spoken to is buzzing with excitement and can’t wait.

So let’s enjoy and see what happens. Here we go . . .