Left Stag: May 2026 - The Future Is Amber

A large number of Mansfield Town fans, as the curtains fall on the 2025/26 season, are in an unprecedented position. With the team achieving a finish of 10th in League One – the highest in thirty-eight years – and after reaching the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in fifty years, the season is being discussed by many as potentially their best ever. For me, at forty-one years old, it’s certainly in the conversation...

What are the metrics by which to judge it? We’ve already mentioned league position and cup longevity. I’d add to that the style of football played – this season is up there, but perhaps not quite as attractive as the team of the early 2000’s, which gained promotion from the forth tier and played a solitary, exhilarating and ultimately ill-fated season in the third. That side had flair in abundance, but was weaker at the back. For the purists, this current team is far superior. Stags’ defence has been the joint-third best in the league, conceding just forty-five goals – one more than promoted Cardiff, the same as playoff team Stevenage and fewer than their fellow playoff hopefuls Bradford, Bolton and Stockport. This mightily impressive statistic shows just how well Nigel Clough and his recruitment team have managed to address the defensive issues of the previous campaign and is why, in his end of season interview, the gaffer confirmed that there will be no changes at the back going into next season – provided the players offered new contacts all sign them.

Another key criteria of best ever season has to be memorable moments. The seasons of that 2001-2004 team contained many goals, some memorable games against Luton, Huddersfield and Leicester, and dazzling performances from Wayne Corden, Liam Lawrence, Chris Greenacre and Bobby Hassell. There are several players from that era that would make the all time XI of any Stags fan my age, as there would be from our Conference title-winning season in 2013. This season however, has been packed with ‘moments’.  

There were huge away victories at places like Luton, Stockport, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Bolton, all in front of massive travelling numbers (Stags averaged over 1300 away, this season – 7th in the division). There were stunning goals, from rapid counter-attacks and precision crosses, to rocket-shots and top-corner curlers – the goal of the season award has never been harder to judge! For lots of fans, the best moments came in the historic Fa Cup run, as well as in the League Cup, where 6000 fans travelled to Everton’s new ground. Nearly 5000 saw Louis Reed and Rhys Oates dismantle Championship Sheffield Utd, before nearly 4000 saw the same duo dispatch Premier League Burnley – and then there was Arsenal. The run came to an end in heroic fashion and that day, sat with my Arsenal and Stags supporting step-daughter, represented the most sentimental moment for me. However, it cannot and never could, compare to the outright joy and relief of beating Chesterfield away in the League Cup first round. Hopefully Notts County will represent Nottinghamshire well and finish the job they’ve started (at the time of writing), and dump the sheep botherers out of the League Two playoffs!

Last August, I was interviewed by the magazine about my views on the state of the club and what I expected of the coming season. I spoke about the ‘gradual progress’ Clough and our owners specialise in. This, with a jump of seven places in one season and industrious work and investment off the pitch to improve the facilities and squad, now feels a tad unfair. It has to be said, that as a club and a team, we have come on massively this season. At the club’s end of season awards night, owners John and Carolyn Radford revealed designs for the second and third phases of the Bishop Street Stand redevelopment. The stand finally opened this season and over the next two seasons it will develop further to include corporate boxes, a tv gantry and an iconic arch! When I predicted where Stags would finish this year, I was slightly cautious. I expected there to be some improvement, but with the nature of our injuries over the last couple of seasons and our tendency to go on good, as well as bad runs, it felt impossible to place our finish. I went for 14th in the table, with the broad caveat that it could easily be five places either side of that. I never dreamt that Mansfield would finish 10th, in the top half of the third tier for the first time in my living memory. In fact, 10th is where Stags finished in 1987, so this season is joint with that one as the highest finish since Mansfield’s highest ever finish – our solitary season in the second tier, in 1977/78. Sights are now firmly on that benchmark.

So it’s been a belter of a season, possibly my favourite as a fan, but let’s focus on the players for a moment. The defence have been rock solid. Liam Roberts cleaned up most of the end of season awards for his heroics all year, in goal and Deji Oshilaja has played his way into my own all-time Stags XI. Louis Reed, in midfield, is playing his best football at the club and looks every bit the top-half League One playmaker. Rhys Oates has finished top scorer with eleven goals, while Lucas Aikins returned from a prison sentence to score nine – at the age of thirty-seven! Again, recruitment was key during the season, especially in the loan market. Irow and Abbott came from Spurs and played their part. McDonnell, Gardener and McAdam came from Forest. Stags went in for Jamaica international, Jon Russell, unhappy at Barnsley, and he proved a real find – everyone is hopeful we can re-sign him. But the best of the bunch has to be Tyler Roberts, who was once a favourite of Marcelo Bielsa in the Premier League, at Leeds. He is quite possibly the most talented player I’ve seen at Field Mill and it’s a true statement of the ambition the club has for next season, that he has been signed already. All the players we have wanted to keep have either signed now or are due to, according to Clough. The optimism is palpable, the progress is tangible and the fans have bought into it again, with nearly six thousand season tickets sold for the 2026/27 season, before this one has officially ended. With a great set of players, staff and owners, unprecedented attendance figures and results on the pitch, and the prospect of more moments next season at places like Leicester, Sheff Wednesday and hopefully Notts County, this truly is the best time to ever be a Stags fan and I’m delighted to be signing off on such a positive note. Watch out for next season – the future is amber!