Barker Happy at Field Mill

Last updated : 13 August 2006 By Editor
Reflecting on the news that he was finally offered a two year extension to his current deal at Field Mill, Barker admitted that he had to convince the Chairman of the merits of such a new deal.

Talking in this weekends edition of the Football Post, Barker said "I understand the chairman was a little taken aback by the suggestion of a two year extension rather than one."

"But I made it pretty clear to him that this is where I want to be and that I am as fit as I have ever been."

"We worked out how expensive it would be to bring in someone else in to do the same job as me and, in doing that, he realised that it wasn't such a bad idea."

"It then took about a week for the paperwork to be drawn up and signed - it was just unfortunate that things were delayed a little bit because of the chairman's involvement in the (Keith Curle) court case."

"But it's a big relief for it to be out of the way now and I can concentrate on doing my job for the team."

Baker also revealed that he is hoping this Stags team can bring some much needed successs to Field Mill "Hopefully we will have some success and get promotion in the next three years."

"Going up two divisions is not an impossibility as Rotherham showed with back-to-back promotions when I was there."

"They are not much bigger a club than Mansfield, if at all, so you can never say never and this year we have to be looking to get into the play-offs at least."

"Things have gone well in pre-season, and we have made a decent start but it is by no means a foregone conclusion that we are going to finish in the top seven and there will have to be a lot of hard work if we are going to do that."

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the FULL interview given by Barker, is in this weeks edition of the Football Post.......