"A man trying to sell a blind horse always praises its feet."

Well, after the excitement of 11 goals in the previous 3 home games we were about due for a nil-niller. Shame it was in front of a bumber crowd in excess of 4,000.

Kettering were certainly the best,most organised side to visit Field Mill so far this year and the two centre backs controlled the aerial balls throughout the game.

It was a shame Mansfield Town failed to stick to the game plan deployed in the first 20 minutes. Passing along the ground was working well for retaining possession and controlling the midfield if not quite leading to the creation of a plethora of chances. Unfortunately as frustration grew so did the tendency to lump the ball forward in the air. Cannon fodder to the Kettering goliaths at the back.

My son leaves a little disappointed and perhaps fairly questioning why Sammy the Stag wasn't brought on to spice things up in the second half.

Kettering would have been overly rewarded for their effective if limited 4-5-1 formation had their centre forward converted a guilt edged chance with three minutes to go, heading wide from 3 yards out with no-one to beat.

Cows arses and banjo's come to mind.

Bit of a rest now until the next home game but am seriously contemplating an away trip to Kidderminster on Tuesday week. My first with the Stags.

"There is no twilight zone of honesty. A thing is right or it's wrong. It's black or it's white."

Look let me say one thing. Personally, I like Arsene Wenger.

He is a respected coach, he gets his teams to play quality, attractive, fan-pleasing football.

He has probably done more than any other manager to bring continental style football, diet and culture to England

I have no reason to hate Arsenal or Arsene.

But..................................

Sometimes he is as stupid as a box of bricks.

His selective blindness is infuriating in the extreme.

Words of wisdom for you Arsene. It's o.k. to tell the truth every now and again even when it means letting your players know they have been wrong. Honesty sometimes is cleansing
Anyone who watched the incident against Celtic on Wednesday would know:-

1. Eduardo dived
2. He did it deliberately
3. He did it in order to win a penalty.

No questions, no doubt. It's a fact. Accept it, move on.

Wengers view?

"I believe you can debate whether it is a penalty or not. But this charge implies there was intent and a desire to cheat the referee. Having seen again the pictures again, nothing is conclusive. "

Arsene, you are mad as a barrel load of monkeys.

Wenger added that European football's governing body would have difficulty proving the 26-year-old intended to deceive the referee.

I don't think so. Their 2 hour disciplinary hearing on the matter will involve the following:-

2.00 pm to 2.05 pm: watch the video

2.05 to 2.10: draft the 2 game ban in a short press release.

2.10 to 2.20: make a cup of tea.

2.20 to 2.35: rustle up a couple of 20p's for the pool table

2.35 to 3.00: pool competition.

3.00 to 3.20: discuss Mansfield Town's impressive start to the season

3.20 to 3.30: argue over whether the biscuit of choice for
football executives is the custard cream or the bourbon

3.30 to 3.55 Quick round robin game of Fifa '09 on the xbox

3.55 to 4.00 Straighten ties ready to face the press.

Job done, rant over.

“At first we hope too much, later on, not enough.”

It is important not to get too carried away. 4 wins out of 5 and the Mansfield Town show has only just started. Hope however is building at Field Mill.

Having seen off a spirited and committed Ebbsfleet yesterday Mansfield sit 2nd in the table.

For the first time this season an away team came to play football. I was tempted to shake the hand of every away fan in gratitude. It wouldn't have taken too long either only 52 braving the trip into the mining heartland.

For the first 20 minutes it was touch and go. Ebbsfleet creditably got the ball on the floor despite a few big lads upfront and passed their way through the midfield. However they were badly let down by some woeful shooting that got worse as the game went on and an ability to pass the ball to an imaginary player some feet away from the nearest team mate.
Mansfield by comparison are a team that take their chances. First thing monday morning I expect Liam Daish the Ebbsfleet manager to have his team watching the Full Monty. The timing of their offside trap needs some work.

First Rob Duffy and later Briscoe taking advantage to beat the keeper one on one at close range. By the time wonder-kid Jake Speight, Speight, Speight wrapped things up with a powerful header half way through the second half the writing was well and truly on the wall.

Over 3100 in the ground for the 3rd time this season. It will be interesting to see how many are still turning up in the depths of December.

The weekend is signed off nicely with an Ashes victory and two more silver medals in the world championship athletics.

"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more."

I have increasing admiration for away fans.

To travel 158 miles on a Tuesday evening to support your fans is admirable.
To make as much noise as you can muster for 90 minutes is admirable.
To take the inevitable humiliation of a 4 -1 loss and the chanting of the home fans in good humour is admirable.
However to put up, week after week with the kind of 'football' served up by Barrow is madness.

A team that comes away from home and puts up a solid defensive effort with 9 men behind the ball and one up front is understandable. What I struggle to comprehend is why supporters put up with a clearly pre-meditated plan of perpetually fouling the opposition in the hope that it will some how lead them to victory. They will travel probably 6 hours on the road for a team to not even try to play the ball.

They say the top stars at the highest level have little regard for the sacrifice fans make to follow their team, but the management and players of Barrow....hang your heads in shame, you have done those travelling mad men an injustice.

The first half was categorised by needless sliding tackle after another,feigning injury,shirt pulling and general thuggery and were it not for the referee somehow finding his balls on the half time table they may have got away with it. As it happened the Stags handed out another Mansfield Town FC spanking.


I am starting to get the hang of the chants. I even joined in with a loud rendition of 'Yellows, yellows, yellows, yellows,yellows, yellows, yellows.'.......I believe that is sign 1 of 23 in Pastarini's guide to becoming a real football fan.

Sign 2 shortly follows...."do those pies taste as they good as they smell" I ask my viewing companion.

There is also a chance that anyone down at Field Mill this season will witness the emergence of raw footballing talent in the shape of Jake Speight. After a couple of sprightly cameos in the first three matches, last nights impact (scoring within 1 minute of his introduction) is a promise of something more.

I would hope the manager has the sense as it appears he does to use him sporadically for the benefit of the team and the player. I have watched enough sport to know that the glimpses of talent as a teenager is no proof of a glittering career.

There were 3,100 in the ground tonight and I have worked out there is a certain skill in leaving your seat after the half time whistle, pegging it to the toilet, queueing at the bar, downing a pint of Worthingtons and getting back in your seat ready for the second half to begin. Still, tonight, mission accomplished.

Why?

I'm having a weekend off football. Mansfield Town having secured themselves a great 1-0 away win at Salisbury Town. I settle down in front of the t.v. for wall to wall athletics from the World Championships in Berlin

But what boils the blood sufficient to vent my spleen? The 20k walk!...........please......!!

It's not the fastest, strongest, highest. It's who can cover 20km the quickest without running. What next? The person who can throw the shot put without making a mark in the grass?

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

I set out for the game. First of the new non league football season. You can taste the anticipation.....................or it could be last nights curry.


My son has been bouncing out of bed every day this week with excitement for his first ever football match.

I spend the walk to the ground breaking it to him gently that:-

1. Sammy the Stag probably won't make it into the starting line up
2. There will not be as many goals in today's game as he watches on Football Beebies
(Sunday morning Match of the Day.)

I fear a tepid nil-nil draw will put him off football for life.


We pick up a program and meet with friends before heading into the stadium.

I love that first sight of the pitch after climbing the stairs and taking a look out across the ground.


I find myself sat next to one of Mansfield Town's better looking female fans for the whole game. Not only that but she talks football with insight and intellect. I am beginning to think this could be a good day.


Mansfield start a little shakily but a goal after 15 minutes settles them down and they comfortably outplay Crawley Town for a 4-0 win.

Not quite like watching Brazil but I'm thinking a darn sight better than watching Crawley Town.

For the 57 fans that made the trip, I salute you.


The papers will report the 1st and 3rd goals were controversial but I have a lesson for the Crawley defender who clutched his head on the floor until he noticed a Mansfield Town player bearing down on goal.


If you're really injured:-


DO stay on the ground clutching your head,preferably lying as still as possible.


DON'T bolt upright, jump to your feet, sprint to charge down the ball, deflect it into your own net from 20 yards watching it loop over your goalie, only then to return to a prone position hoping the referee was asleep for all of the above and will cancel out the goal.


He will probably feel a little silly tonight.

He was substituted a few minutes after the goal I think more out of shame and embarrassment than actual injury.


As for the third I am not sure that offside actually works if all the defenders clear the area about 3 seconds after the centre forward has received the ball and is one on one with the keeper but well done to the Crawley players for trying.


My son will now think that everytime we come there will be lots of goal mouth action, 4 goals and more importantly smiley faces on every stags fan in the stadium. Chants of 'We are top of the league' was maybe a tad taking the piss but when you start the season like that you can forgive the fans for their optimism.


Leaving the stadium I treat my son and lucky mascot to chicken mcfaggots at the local macdonaldinho's pondering the question on everyones lips:-

Which is the largest European city never to have had a top-flight team?

The Theory of Sport

Before the first game of the season I have ample opportunity to engage my 3 year old son in my yet to be published 'theory of sport'.

The theory is as follows:-

In order for a pursuit to be considered a 'sport' as opposed to a hobby, pastime or game it has to comply with the following:-

1. At it's highest level men must be better at it than women.
2. At it's highest level the top players can not be fat.
3. The winner must be able to be determined by an objective test.
i.e. not a judgement by others.

This naturally confines the following to hobby status:-

Ice skating and Diving (breach of rule 3). (note:- boxing passes this test)
Darts and Golf (breach of rule 2.)
Netball and Mud Wrestling (breach of rule 1. )

My son naturally is perplexed by the conundrum of how Shot Put squeezes through despite rule 2 and I ignore his persuasive argument to allow in 'Pass the Parcel' on the basis it breaches rule 1.

Pre-season

With the season ticket now out in the open I wait with baited breath for the fixture list for the upcoming season.

Now I commend myself for my knowledge of both football teams and British Geography with no less than a 'B' grade GCSE to my name.

However I am struggling to guess the origin of many of the teams visiting Field Mill this season. There are a fair share of former league stalwarts who have fallen on hard times, but for every Luton, York, Wrexham and Oxford there's a Histon, Grays Athletic and Ebbsfleet.

My first visit of the season to Field Mill is a 'friendly' v. Walsall. I go along to check out my home for the next season. It should be a balmy July evening with the orange sun setting on the close of a hot summers day.

It is well and truly pissing it down by the time I leave the front door.

I am appropriately dressed and wonder whether the shorts, brown suede slip-ons and cagoule look will ever really catch on.

There is a lot of hope around the football club at the start of the season no doubt replicated by teams and supporters up and down the country.

The period just before the start of the season is probably the only time to be truly optimistic. Last seasons disappointments are forgotten and you can be forgiven for believing that the 10 players shipped in from other teams in a similar predicament could feasibly turn into world beaters or at least Blue Square Premier beaters.

The atmosphere is good with 1700 having turned out on a wet pre-season evening.

Walsall play 2 divisions up from Mansfield and are expected therefore to be a formidable challenge having brought out most of their expected first team. Needless to say Mansfield are 3-0 up at half-time and playing a good mix of long ball and incisive short passing through the middle of the park.

The new signings look good but it's one of last years player's, Briscoe, in midfield who impresses.

Where you sit in the ground greatly affects your view of the proceedings. I have often discussed matches me and friends have attended separately only to wonder if we've been watching different matches as the perspective of the game changes depending upon the angle of view.

My season ticket replicates the managers dug out but on the other side of the pitch.

I feel close to the action but save where the play is in the goal mouth the view is very much 2-Dimensional. I get little insight into through balls, movement around the pitch or formation.

It makes me wonder why the managers sit in the dug outs. They must not get much of an overall view of their team or crucially what is working and what is not.

There is also a group to my left of clearly veteran season ticket holders who despite clearly having seen a lot of football in their time have a rudimentary view of the game. They clearly think passing the ball sideways, never mind backwards to retain possession is a crime of the highest order.

I resist the temptation of educating them in the ways of Rinus Michels and Valeriy Lobanovskyi and the 'total football' movement of the early 1970's and return to my pie.

I wonder whether they have always been like this or whether a succession of managers over the last 30 years have lead them to the conclusion that shooting from the halfway line is the only not used and therefore the best tactic for success.

I learn from the posters along the corridors inside the ground that Mansfield's last and only visit in to the second tier of the English league structurewas in 1977-78.

All being said and despite letting one in early in the second half Mansfield look like starting the campaign with a strong squad and a positive approach. I conclude that a return to the football league seems a reasonable prospect.

The team in amber and blue walk confidently back to the changing rooms no doubt pondering what the season has in store.

I ponder the same as I trundle home in the almost dark. It is still raining.

Troubled Beginnings

The first hurdle of the season was how to broach the subject with the nearest and dearest.

My long suffering wife has probably not seen me on a Saturday during a season for much more than 2 or 3 day light hours in the last 10 years.

A Saturday match day routine would normally involve me getting up, organising my kit (by which I really mean running around for 20 minutes per item of kit trying to find it.)

Followed by at least 10 minutes swearing when I realise the washing fairies have forgotten to route around my damp sports holdall in the intervening week.

I would then head out around 11.00. Travel between 40 minutes and 2 hours to the ground depending upon whether we were playing in Buxton or Northampton , play the match, get changed, share a few usually friendly after match pints and a chip cob with the opposition before returning home 6-7 hours later, usually too tired to do much else but sit on the sofa, fall asleep and alternately dribble and snore in time with the opening tune of Ant and Decs Saturday take away.

Therefore when I proudly announced I was giving up the playing for good my wife no doubt dreamed about Saturdays with the kids skipping through sunny meadows, (or invariably Meadow hall).

In order to approach the subject of giving up my Saturdays playing for watching I did what only mature adult males can do.................................I said nothing and hoped it would go away.

How then to buy the season ticket without my better half finding out about it? Simple I thought, I'd sneak out of the house on a warm Sunday at the end of June on the pretext of washing the car.
“I'm off to wash the car darling, be back in 15-20 minutes”.
“Are you taking Josh?” came the reply.

“Sh*t!” I thought, what do I do now? If I say no, she'll guess something is up.

If I say yes, there is a greater possibility that my 3 year old may give the game away.

Thinking quickly on my feet I go for the latter option knowing that some bribery at the garage with some chocolate buttons will normally keep the 'chief dobber' from spilling the beans.

I make way to the ground and any chance of keeping things a secret are soon dispelled as I bundle my son out of the car.

“Who's that Daddy?” enquires my son as Sammy the Stag, complete with comedy foam antlers and big fluffy feet comes bounding across the players car park.

After 5 minutes of 'Peep-Boo' with Sammy by which time I manage to pay for my season ticket and Josh teaches Sammy the Stag his special handshake I return to the car knowing the game is up.