These reasons had led to me staying away from a number of games, only recently returning once Palmer had been sent packing. Saturday brought back all the excellent memories of travelling away and has most definitely restored the faith and reasoning behind following this special club again. Ok, so we still have the situation with the chairman ongoing, but it was from a personal point of view, the reason that I enjoyed Saturday so much.
We actually set off very early, it should have been half past 7, but I was later picking up 2 of the travelling party due to the barriers at Sutton Parkway crossing being down, and there not being any trains actually passing. I was only 10 minutes or so late, but I like to be punctual. The plan, devised by Andy was to leave the Three Lions Pub in Meden Vale at half seven, head off to Doncaster and catch the 8.45 train onto Newcastle, this was the option chosen as it was extremely cheap, although the owner of the mini bus taking us to Doncaster said he couldn’t return us home later on, due to the fact that we might be a little tipsy, to which he was quickly corrected and told there was no might involved. Luckily the owner of the company had employed someone with a tad bit of sense who agreed to pick us up later after the game, meaning we avoided any silly little trips to the likes of Retford or Worksop on the way back.
Time was no problem as we got to Doncaster, the only problem was actually finding the damn train station, and true to form it looked a bit of a dump to say the least, it was also good to see many other Stags fans which set the tone for the day of the Stags invasion. GNER had for some reason placed us in the quiet coach, which quite frankly was never going to happen once all 16 of us had boarded, we had said liquid refreshments to keep us company which upset the buffet trolley man who was looking forward to some commission on the way up to Newcastle. Within a couple of hours we were rolling into the station in Newcastle and off loading the entire group to try and locate a place of liquid replenishment to satisfy the thirsty hoards. After a silly walk round the same 2 streets a couple of times, we discovered the Mecca that is the drinking world, a Weatherspoons, plenty of Stags supporters were already in the place, and at £1.58 a pint, there was no wonder why I suppose.
After a quite lengthy stay where the bargain breakfast was over sold to everyone, a bargain at just £1.99 I may add, it was onto the Sports Café just a few meters up the road, where a good time was to be had by all. Rumours of strippers appearing in the pre match build up had got everyone a bit hot under the collar, so it was with great delight when the ever enthusiastic DJ announced that indeed (and I quote) “tits will be bouncing about down in the basement”, now I’ve seen hoards of people being moved steadily down a set of stairs before, but on this occasion it wasn’t quite that, as people pushed and shoved their way down to the bar area on the bottom level of the café. To be fair the DJ treated us to some good jokes about Chesterfield, and was generally up for a laugh and promised to bring the strippers back down to Mansfield should the game go to a replay, his most used phrase however was "aye, f...... Champion" which seemed to go down well with our lot.
I personally didn’t have too much pre match liquid, for I wanted to savour the day and the atmosphere, plus I knew we’d be quite high up in the ground so I would at least need to keep a clear head for the entire game.
I decided to head off to the ground around 2 o clock, this would then give me plenty of time to climb the enourmous way to my seat, and I wasn’t wrong, what a flight of stairs they were, I was mostly surprised that I managed to get up there in just one go, but I needed to sit down after the climb though, so instead of partaking in another pre match pint, I went to my seat to read the £3 programme I’d purchased on the walk upto the ground. All our group were sat in different areas of the away seating, but there were familiar faces all around, and the atmosphere was building as kick off approached.
As for the game itself, I was quite simply proud of every single player that pulled on the jersey, to play Newcastle like that, actually passing the ball through them at times, was out of this world. The 1st half performance was outstanding, and despite what some people think, I personally thought Russell was excellent in the 1st period, and would have become a hero had that shot gone in, instead of Shay Given making a fine save. Ok, he tired in the 2nd and gave the ball away a fair few times, but i thought Birchall could have come on sooner, but I'm not sure you can pick fault with anyone on that performance. I swear blind I went down 2 rows when Rundle had that chance early in the second half.
The fans were also excellent, to hear 5,500 singing "Can we play you every week?" was great stuff, and the chant of "There's only one Graeme Souness" getting booed by the home support.
Once the game had finished, it was all agreed that we’d meet up again in the Sports Café afterwards, as it was close to the train station. The walk back provided plenty of opportunity to mix with home supporters who congratulated us on the way we had played the game, certainly there was no sign of any trouble and the good spirit shown by all is a fine example of how football supporters should behave.
The only disappointment after the game was that the strippers had long gone from the Sports Café, but again a mixture of Newcastle and Stags supporters mixed happily, swapping many good football stories, until it was time for us to up sticks and leave, with just an uneventful train and mini bus journey back to occupy the mind, thinking just what could have been, but in the words of the DJ featured, the day had quite simply been “aye, f...... champion"
Michael