LOMAS ON STAGS: '˜Boo boys' beggar belief as Stags fly high

It is incredible that, given where the side are, Steve Evans and Paul Raynor are still under fire from a small section of ‘fans’.

Let’s make this clear – it is a tiny number and it is not just grumblings or football banter.

It is venomous and has been aimed directly at the pair and at least one family member in the stand too.

What is it with modern football that people think they have the right to go that far just because they pay admission fees?

Let’s make this clear now. Stags will never be perfect this season. There, I’ve said it.

This is League Two football and players are at that level for a reason.

If you want to watch Barcelona book a trip to Spain.

But if you want to see a manager and a set of honest, talented players busting a gut for your home town club then now is a good time to get down the One Call Stadium.

This is a side that, amazingly, have now only lost once in 18 games and are firmly in the hunt for automatic promotion among some far bigger clubs than Mansfield Town.

Yet, at 2-0 up against Carlisle on Monday, but having conceded a penalty that was never a penalty when you see the replay, Raynor was again given a torrent of personal abuse on the bench just because the opposition had pulled one back.

It simply beggars belief.

Once again you could see a manager of Evans’ vast experience seriously rattled by it after the game - and this is man who has thickened skin after seasons of ‘normal’ football abuse/banter, which we all know and love as part of the game and which he is perfectly ‘happy’ to absorb.

Few fans dared believe names as big as Evans and Raynor would take the job when Adam Murray had gone and left Stags in the mire 14 months ago.

But they agreed to come, John Radford backed their judgement on players financially and it takes one glance at the table to see how well that has gone.

But some so-called supporters seem to be reading their paper upside down.

These people may pay their money but the ground would be a much better place without them.
So let’s hope they get so upset with their side doing so well that they drift off to find something else to do on Saturday afternoons.

To the rest of you, a very Happy New Year - it may not be perfect, but it’s Mansfield and it’s currently very successful.

Whether a second defeat in 19 outings can be avoided at Championship club Cardiff City on Saturday is a major doubt.

Stags go into it as major underdogs, despite four successive defeats for Neil Warnock’s men.

Knowing the wily Warnock, he won’t allow whatever Bluebirds XI he puts out to take their eye off things for a moment against lesser opposition. But if they do, you never know.

One thing you can be sure of. If Stags do go out of the competition there will be a section of supporters who will almost delight in it and be ready to remind the Stags bench how poor they are when return to the One Call Stadium on 20th January and that is very sad.