I first became aware of the indisputable fact that time passes more quickly as you get older when I was about twenty five and now, forty five years later, one of the most obvious examples of this is how quickly a football season flies by.
Surely it cannot be that it will be a full nine months since Rubin Colwill scored that great free kick and Ronan Kpakio came up with a fairytale winning goal on 2 August in our opening game? It is though, Cardiff City’s 25/26 campaign ends nine months to the day later on Saturday at whatever they call Field Mill, Mansfield these days.
With plans to increase the number of clubs in the Championship Play Offs, we’re getting to a stage where the number of clubs with nothing at stake on the final day of the regular season will be outweighed by those that are in desperate needs of the three points to either extend their season, ensure they’re playing in a higher division come August or that they’ll be staying where they are.
It’s not like that for City or Mansfield on Saturday. We’ve had a great season, our second best ever in terms of points gained I believe if you applied the three points for a win rule throughout the club’s history. Also we’ve not only secured an immediate return to the Championship, we’ve done it playing in a style completely at odds with how the club have played for way too many of my sixty three years supporting them.
I’m hoping we can do two things on Saturday, score enough goals to make us the division’s highest scorers and avoid defeat so that we end up averaging at least two points a game over the course of the season. However, it’s certainly not the end of the world if we fail in both of those objectives – we got the job done nearly a fortnight ago and what’s happened since Reading has been akin to an extended lap of honour.
One thing I will say though is that it’s a good job we aren’t one of those teams whose fate rests on what happens in their last game because, if Mansfield play as they usually do, they will take a lot of beating.
Back in November we were comfortable 3-0 winners over the Stags in our first meeting with them and that scoreline didn’t flatter us at all.
However, I remember Nigel Clough being interviewed after the game where he talked about all of the injuries his team had at the time. To be honest, I paid little heed to what he said because I figured that it was just the usual stuff from a manager whose team had been, well, beaten. The thing is though, certainly, over the second half of the campaign, I’ve found myself thinking “do Mansfield ever lose?”.
I never got around to trying to find the answer to my question until I started typing this piece, but if you look at their results since Boxing Day, Mansfield’s mid table mediocrity position is misleading. As it is, Mansfield have lost one in fourteen going into Saturday’s game. Before that, they had three straight losses in February, but then if you go back through January and late December, they were unbeaten in eight. All of this makes for a record since Boxing Day of
P 25 W 9 D 12 L 4
There’s too many draws in there I suppose and you cannot predict how summer transfer windows will go, but I’ll be keeping an eye on Mansfield next season, because they strike me as dark horses for a genuine top six challenge next season. I’ll be very pleasantly surprised if we sign off our season with a win.
On to the final quiz of the season then, seven more questions about upcoming opponents with the answers to be posted on here on Sunday.
60s. Apart from possibly in one or both of the under 23 caps this forward won, none of his senior football was played in the country of his birth. Starting off wearing stripes in front of a raucous end, said to be one of the loudest around at the time, he scored goals at a rate of better than one in two in just under a hundred league appearances. However the fact that they were over a six year period rather tells the story that he was never a regular pick. Nevertheless, when he was sold, it was to a First Division team good enough to be regular Cup Finalists through this decade. His scoring rate at his new club was close to a goal a game, but we’re only talking about six league appearances spread over a couple of years, so it was no surprise to see him moving the shortish distance to Mansfield where, by his previous standards, his scoring rate was a more modest one in four despite him playing at least two divisions lower than what had been the norm for him. After about seventy league appearances in two seasons, he left Mansfield for the north east to see out his career with a team that were perennial strugglers in the league’s basement at that time, can you name him?
70s. Another one of those players with a surname (one you weren’t likely to forget once you knew of it!) I’ve not heard before or since in the game, – this midfielder started out on the south coast with a club that was causing a bit of a splash with a brash manager in his first job. As his club prospered, he found it hard to keep his place in the team and was sold to Mansfield where he established himself to the extent that he barely missed a match in his two years there. In fact, he did so well that a club that had just won in one of Wembley’s more memorable matches of this decade signed him. He was more of a squad player at his new club, but did well enough to persuade a club of similar standing and that played in the same colours to buy him. He was a regular during his season with this team, but then dropped at least one division to return to the county where he began his career to represent a team thats nickname suggested they were fond of drinking spirits! His final club have, in latter years, perhaps taken over the mantle of most boring side to support from Shrewsbury, and, I’m pretty sure I’m right when I say they’ve spent a total of just two seasons in the top two divisions in their history. Who is the player being described?
80s. Recover, stir and hit while scoring goals for Mansfield! (6,8)
90s. Sounds like an order to Mr Clough to terminate controversial manager of sixties supergroups!
00s. Stuffed shirt from twenty five year old American TV series meets “the Real Thing”.
10s. A scorer for Mansfield against City, he’ll probably be playing against a Welsh club in a crucial end of season encounter on Saturday, who is he?
20s. Sounds like a debt to secret society member.
Answers
60s. Scotland born Dominic (Nick) Sharkey scored fifty one times in his ninety nine league games for Sunderland where he experienced the famous Roker roar and then it was five goals in six games for Leicester before his move to Mansfield in 1968 and finally he had a spell with Hartlepool United two years later.
70s. Dennis Longhorn played about three hundred and twenty league games in a sixteen year career which saw him represent Bournemouth, under John Bond, Mansfield, Sunderland, Sheffield United, Aldershot (the Shots) and Colchester.
80s. Trevor Christie.
90s. Brian Kilcline – Allen Klein was a dubious character who at one time managed both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
00s. Giles Coke – (Rupert) Giles was Buffy Summers’ “watcher” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Real Thing was probably the most famous advertising slogan for Coca Cola (otherwise known as Coke).
10s. Gary Rose scored Mansfield’s goal in City’s 4-1 win at Field Mill in a Third Round FA Cup replay in 2018 and on Saturday, he’s likely to be in the Barrow side which faces Newport County – Barrow are all but down now, but Newport can escape a relegation which has looked inevitable for much of the season if they can better the results of three of the four sides around them.
20s. Owen Mason.
