Left Stag: March - Arsenal in town

At the end of September 2025, with the early bench-mark of ten games passed and the transfer window firmly shut, two clubs with vastly different situations and ambitions visited Port Vale in the same week. Mansfield Town and Arsenal, separated by two divisions on paper, but by a four-billion-pound chasm in valuation were, for a brief moment, inhabiting the same world.

On a cold, rainy night in Stoke, The Stags couldn’t do it, falling to an injury time 2-1 defeat. Four days later, Arsenal’s supporters stood on the same away end I had admired for its character and acoustics, to see the Premier League giants win 2-0 and progress to the Fourth Round of the League Cup, the final of which they will contest with Manchester City in a few weeks time.

Eberechi Eze was the star for them at Vale Park, netting his first goal for the club, after signing weeks earlier from Palace. More from him later. I wondered at the time whether Mikel Arteta and his entourage would have watched the highlights of Vale’s previous match, studying for weaknesses and noticing how the flair and pace of Rhys Oates or the work-rate of Will Evans had caused Vale real trouble before a dubious penalty decided the day. I wrote about the Arsenal fans, surely unused to such surroundings – the muddy track behind the away stand, the overflowing toilets and the rain pouring through holes in the roof.

I wondered whether they’d enjoy the nostalgia and novelty or just see it as beneath them. Arsenal won and proceeded to advance in that competition, as well as the FA Cup, the Champions League and all the way to the summit of the Premier League. Mansfield meanwhile, despite some real adventures in the cup, have been rising and falling like the tide in League One, far from assured of survival.

Fast forward to March and against all odds – against what history tells us is possible – Mansfield and Arsenal are set to briefly inhabit the same world again. After Nigel Clough has guided Stags to the FA Cup Fifth Round for the first time since the mid-70s, his side are rewarded (or punished, if you take his perspective) with a plum tie at home to the Premier League leaders. The first reaction to the draw in my household is one of elation. Sat on the sofa with my eleven-year-old, Arsenal-mad step-daughter, it feels like we’ve manifested the draw we wanted. “Number nine, Mansfield Town…will play….” We grip the sofa and chant in unison “six, six, six!”, as Joe Cole reaches into the bag “Number Six, Arsenal”. Absolute limbs (as they say) in the living room!

The weeks leading up to the game are predictably full of anticipation for Mansfield fans. The players, staff and owners do interviews. Narratives are decided upon – Rhys Oates grew up supporting Arsenal; would Mansfield’s two Spurs loanees feature; could Cloughy succeed in the one competition his famous dad could not? Well, that last one may be a touch fantastical, but as Old Big Head once said “the FA Cup is special because anyone can beat anyone”. I grew up hearing about our famous cup fun of the 1968/69 season, in which West Ham’s Hurst, Moore and Peters were unceremoniously dumped out 3-0, at Field Mill, and I also saw us embarrassed by non-league Southport. My only hope for this game is to not lose to a dodgy decision, as we had against Liverpool in 2013, or because the players hadn’t had the courage to take it to Arsenal. As it transpires, I needn’t have feared that.

Matchday arrives and so do the fans, in their thousands. Steve McMannaman and Martin Keown mic-up by the burger van. Vaguely familiar broadcasters shuffle through throngs of smiling fans in the narrow space behind the Ian Greaves Stand and, after signing myself and my step-daughter in at the media room, we take our passes and head up to the club’s 1861 Suite for pre-match hospitality. Matt Green, hero of the Stags’ Conference title-winning side is speaking to the room, recalling his goal against Liverpool, the last time one of the ‘Big Six’ came to town. We inhale our bacon cobs, flick through the special-edition programme and peer out the window at the sea of people below, half-and-half scarves and pints in hand.

My step-daughter had told me she would be supporting Arsenal, although Stags are her second team and the club she represents at U-12 level football every Sunday. She has offered some decent banter about the scoreline, in the days before, and even asked me with genuine curiosity, why Mansfield would want to play a team as good as Arsenal - “the best team in the world”, as she’d put it. Precisely because they are so good, I’d explained. While I go on (maybe too much) about how much I love the lower leagues and wouldn’t ever swap them for the high prices, corporate sheen and disconnect I associate with the Premier League, it’s nice to have the spotlight on our little club for once. I tell her that it’s also great to see how our lads would do against the best possible opposition, in a fixture that, until today, she would only have seen in a FIFA game. Today is the real deal and once we’re in the ground, she definitely gets it.

Wide-eyed and fidgeting excitedly in her seat, she takes in the full-house atmosphere, the high-tempo music blaring from the tannoys and the first glimpse of Saka, Eze, Gyökeres and co, before they head back to the changing rooms. We share a few hugs, wave to family in other sections and wait until, finally, she shoots up out of her seat and points “look!”. The players are ready to come out from the tunnel, the TV cameras are ready and the fans are off their seats in rapturous applause. The first notes of ‘On The Ball’, Mansfield’s historic walk-out music (and the same that greeted West Ham’s World Cup heroes here in 1969), echoes around the four stands. Arsenal fans sing ‘She Wore A Yellow Ribbon’. The FA Cup is in town in all its magical glory.

The record fourteen-time winners are in their traditional red and white. Stags are resplendent in amber and blue. The excitement is at ‘fever pitch’ and away we go. As the match begins, a few things that were fully expected unfold. 1. Arsenal, despite nine changes from their Premier League visit to Brighton, are several steps above in technical ability. 2. The pitch is a ‘leveller’ and the odd bounce or ball stuck in the mud gives Mansfield a chance to get close to it. 3. The atmosphere is bouncing. What is unexpected, is what happens next. Clough’s men, rather than star-struck and sitting in, are aggressive and taking the game to the best team in England. Rhys Oates, leading by example, is pressing high and running at his full-back at every opportunity. Louis Reed is cool as a cucumber in midfield. Tyler Roberts shows the touch and awareness that made him a Premier League player himself. Somehow, we have a game!

Just before the break Noni Madueke shows why he’s one of England’s most promising young players and fires a first-time shot into the top-corner of Liam Roberts’ goal. It’s not unexpected, but it doesn’t feel deserved. Both sides have had great chances to score, but Mansfield have registered more shots than Arsenal. “We’re still in this!” I tell Matt Green over half-time refreshments. As the players come out, it’s obvious that Tyler Roberts isn’t among them and Will Evans is coming on. He hasn’t had his scoring boots on of late, but his work rate is never in doubt. I tell my step-daughter that he’ll be sure to press the sixteen-year-old Marli Salmon in Arsenal’s back-line. Sure enough, the man who once scored against Man Utd in this competition, does just that. Almost inexplicably the Arsenal players panic under the press. Salmon under-hits his pass back. Evans gets to it. Mosquera hesitates. Evans skins him alive, bears down and shoots. GOAL!!! It’s the stuff of wildest dreams and Field Mill erupts like I’ve never heard it before. Arms aloft and smiles of unbridled joy fill the stands. Evans shushes the away fans. He doesn’t need to. They’re already standing in stunned silence. We’re little old Mansfield.

This isn’t supposed to happen – not against Arsenal. But for the next fifteen minutes, we go toe to toe with football giants, pressing ever higher, creating chances, so nearly taking the lead. Pride fills me up. I notice my step-daughter now egging the Stags on, every bit as enthusiastically as the rest of us. She must have felt torn today, not least because it’s her dad’s team vs her step-dad’s. I’ve told her it’s absolutely fine for her to want Arsenal to win, yet now she’s squealing anxiously whenever they attack Mansfield’s goal. In the end, our fears are realised. The big guns are on and one of them, Eberechi Eze, who once made his professional debut for Wycombe in this stadium, scores a goal befitting a £67.5m England international. The game finishes 2-1 to Arsenal, but we’re all smiling.

After the game, I go off to the media room for the press-conference. Mikel Arteta is relieved, but complimentary of Mansfield – the team, Nigel, the club as a whole. He reserves his highest praise for the fans – “the energy that the supporters put in, I think was extraordinary. The intensity, the banter at times, the interactions and the belief that they put in towards the team”. He cites this, along with the pitch and the early kick-off as reasons his side “really had to earn it” and calls the match “a proper cup tie”. As polite as the obligatory respectful comments are, it’s my gaffer I want to hear from. Clough is proud, stoic and honest, as always. “We could have nicked it” he says and tells of how he was “surprised how many we created”. Indeed, Mansfield’s eighteen shots (one fewer than Arsenal) represents the highest number created against England’s best defence in over a year.

One journo asks whether Clough was tempted to sit in against such formidable opponents. “No, no, no” He shoots back immediately, “I don’t think there would have been much point … we wanted to play like that for our supporters, as well. They don’t want to come, 10,000 people, and watch us sit back. If we’re going to go out, let’s go out having a go, like we did today”. Spot on, gaffer. I leave with my head high and knowing that I’ll have a story to tell future generations, just as my Dad and Grandad told me about 1969. I rejoin my step-daughter, alongside my parents and the club’s owners, John and Carolyn Radford, and the icing on the cake? She managed to meet Bukayo Saka for a photograph! He’s been her favourite player for a few years, but I have a sneaking feeling that he’s now up against stiff competition in the shape of Rhys Oates, Deji Oshilaja, Tyler Roberts and Louis Reed.