The day started out at 11:30am catching the bus from Ashby Broadway to Glanford Park, I remember thinking ‘this is a decent amount waiting for the buses!’ According to the Iron’s official website we had sold 1,200 tickets for the game. A lot for the level of football we are in.
12 o’clock came and went and we embarked on the coach journey to Field Mill. Although it only took about 1 hour 20 mins I hated it. I despise coach journeys with a passion. They’re unbelievably boring and if the train didn’t cost twice as much as the supporters coach and take 3 hours, 3 HOURS TO GET TO MANSFIELD, I would of gone on that no qualms. We arrived at Field Mill and my first thoughts were ‘why is it in the middle of a retail park?’ The away end is surrounded by shops such as Home Bargains and Carpet Right, very strange.
We embarked on a journey to find the nearest pub where we saw Mansfield train station, a right weird one, it is on top of a bridge above a dual carriageway basically. The pub we found was called the Railway Inn and although it was a lovely quaint pub that sold beer at a reasonable price, £2.50 for a pint of Strongbow will do me nicely, it was far too small and cramped. The sight of a 30 year old man wearing a Mansfield away top with the name ‘Ronaldo 35’ on the back also ruined the pub experience. After the pub me and my mates decided to go get a Burger King which we had walked past early. Burger King is far too expensive. £5.29 for a double cheeseburger, medium fries and pepsi does not please me or my wallet. After the food was devoured it was about 2:30 and time to enter the ground.
I like Field Mill. It is a nice ground from the outside and the inside, far better than Burys ground anyway although the stand to the left of the away end is just disgusting, it is just filled with advertising boards. Not sure if construction work is going on there or if they have just shut the stand down but it looks cheap and scabby. The away end was slowly filling up as we took our position at the very top of the stand behind the goal, amongst the most ‘hardcore’ of Scunny fans. 3pm came and the game kicked off and surprise surprise Mansfield fell into the category of clubs which have a drum which drowns out all singing from the fans and sounds cheap. Fair play to Mansfield however, on a few chants you could hear them over the drum even at the other end of the stadium, unlike Bury when I was stood right next to them.
In the early exchanges Mansfield started the strongest, forcing the Iron’s keeper, Sam Slocombe, into a smart save after just 3 mins and I wondered if it would be another game away with my mates where the Iron didn’t win. (My record before this game stood at 5 away games, 3 losses and 2 draws) however, the omens looked good after 9 mins when Sam Winnall and a Mansfield defender collided and the ball fell inviting for new signing Paul Hayes, on his 3rd debut for Scunthorpe, to strike on the volley and strike it he did! a 25 yard volley right into the top corner leaving the keeper with no chance and cue pandemonium in the stands! In homage to this strike Scunny fans let off a smoke bomb. Cringe. 1 smoke bombs look pathetic and tacky, if you’re going to do it at least do it right, rumour also has it that the fan that let it off handed himself in. Hello 3 year bannin order. The rest of the half was pretty dire with not many clear cut chances falling to either side, only a Sam Winnall shot hitting the side netting and a Niall Canavan header looping onto the roof of the net were that close although at the other end Mansfield were only denied going one on one with Slocombe by a great last ditch tackle from Christian Ribeiro.
Half time came and this is the only thing I can complain about, the catering at Mansfield is dreadful, I waited a whole 15 mins to try get a pint but in that time I think the catering staff only served 5 people. Absolutely useless, I reckon they were boiling the kettle from cold each time that someone asked for a coffee. Gave up at the start of the second half as I was going to wet myself and didn’t want to miss the game. Start of the second half and just as soon as I finally managed to find somewhere to piss I heard the crowd get excited but turned into nothing luckily, would of been incredibly annoyed if I missed anything.
The second half was much like the first half, neither team having many chances. Main chance fell to Sam Winnall, who after the ball was knocked back to him headed into Alan Marriott’s arms with the whole goal seemingly gaping. The atmosphere in the Scunny end was good for us and on the 78th minute it got a whole lot better, a ball was swung in and headed back across goal for Paul Hayes to sweep home for his and the Iron’s second of the game, cue yet more pandemonium in the stands and the atmosphere getting bumped up an extra few notches. The whole stand was rocking. Mansfield to their credit kept plugging away with the direct football they had deployed all game and a few balls fell dangerously in the Iron penalty area in the last 10 minutes but no-one was there to trouble keeper Sam Slocombe and the Iron held on for a comfortable 2-0 win.
After the game we all piled back onto the coaches to be escorted to the edge of Mansfield, no idea why pretty pointless if you ask me, in pretty buoyant mood. 2 points clear at the top of the season with more than half the season gone and 3 new quality signings at this level in Paddy Madden, Dave Syers and Marcus Williams the rest of the season looks bright for the Iron!
Under The Floodlights 