All Bluebirds Column #2: Mansfield Alive!
Why do we go to football? A trip to Mansfield is never one to stir the blood and many times have left us rather queasy. Some of the remembered defeats linger like an ancient sore.
The place itself squats pointlessly in some debatable land in Nottinghamshire and the ground offers little in the way of character or welcome. Mansfield Town in January? One for the masochists, a huddled few coppering up post-Christmas.
By three-forty Saturday? These feelings of desolate pointlessness had settled on the away end like a shroud. Barrow, in a legitimate attempt to cope with Mansfield’s WWE approach to football had gone for brawn and battle, with Connor Brown and Richie Bennett in.
Many of us had been crying out for this. We need to be a bit more streetwise! ‘The ball’s got to stick’! ‘We’ve got to be more proactive’! However, no one seemed to have introduced the players to each other, never mind given them a game plan. Shows how much we knew.
The first goal was depressingly inept all round- Paul Farman for me rather less at fault than the ‘wall’, which showed little enthusiasm for basic defending. The second goal was all about centre half distribution. We couldn’t- then we didn’t,-then we couldn’t,-then they scored. This goal was so badly defended, Niall and George should both claim an assist.
Within this carnage, Barrow were chasing shadows. A beefed up midfield was confused and tentative, Bennett isolated and ineffective. It reeked of Stevenage away. I went for a pie.
A surprised cheer went up as I rummaged for change. Billy Waters had ruthlessly clubbed a shot into the bottom corner from a tight angle. Half time brought little optimism in the away support, despite this lifeline. We had been simply terrible.
However, deep within the bowels of the One-Call Stadium, something was stirring. We don’t know what happened. Perhaps we never will. Pete Wild said he had told them to ‘believe’. That felt a bit like St Paul saying he ‘had a quick chat’ on the Damascus highway.
The conversion was certainly biblical. Josh Gordon must have changed in a phone box, emerging like Superman to finish a well-worked move with a header. Suddenly, it was August and Stockport, not December and Stevenage.
Mansfield. Organised effective Mansfield, now twisted hither and thither by a rapier-like Barrow. The clever angles were back, the pace was back, the buccaneering pressing was back. They had no answer- like some befuddled beast tormented by the hunter, they capitulated with an own goal, made by a resurgent Tyrell Warren.
Newby, sharp and bright. Whitfield; gloriously restored to his natural habitat. Gordon, matador in chief, ‘a fireball of restless energy.
The incessant drum fell silent. Barrovian voices rang defiantly out of the gathering gloom. Our two centre halves and Paul Farman were now channelling Inter Milan style ‘Catenaccio’ rather than end of the pier slapstick as they shut the game down with ease. Indeed, there was no storm to weather.
Why do we go to football? At the end of this game, amid the delirium, we hugged friends and strangers alike. The team came across, roaring, bursting, with character and defiance- Wild levitating in front of us, primal screaming. Mansfield Town in January? Astonishing.