Emotional Bury return looming for Mansfield Town boss Flitcroft

Manager Flitcroft helped the Shakers to promotion in 2014/15 and heads back to Gigg Lane on Saturday with his in-form Mansfield Town side.

“I am really looking forward to it,” he said. “It’s a place I had massive success and built a legacy with the youth, sold a load of players and had a brilliant time.”

Stags head there on the back of a frustrating 0-0 home draw with Oldham, when they did everything but score in a one-sided affair last night.

“Bury are challenging – they are up there, and we have to go there with that confidence and belief we’ve got,” said Flitcroft.

“After the Oldham game I said to the players go back to your house and think about all the positives from this game.”

Flitcroft will try to treat Saturday as just another game, but admits there are many good memories still up there for him.

He said: “It will be a day of football. Ryan Lowe is the manager. “He played for me there – I brought him in when we got promoted and he has been a phenomenal servant to the football club.

“I had a brilliant relationship with the chairman Stewart Day, who supports his managers. He supported me phenomenally.

“I got to work with some very good players and they were special times.

“We had some good times, though there were five or six weeks when I didn’t get it right.

“Over a three year period I made a lot of friends and made the club a lot of money.

“I set up a phenomenal youth system and brought Ryan Kidd in as one of my first signings to go and help with the youth.

“They are in a brilliant position as a football club. I left it in really good shape.

“But there has been a lot of change and a lot of different managers since I left - and a relegation.”

Flitcroft admitted part of the appeal of taking the Mansfield job was the possibility of recreating that Bury success.

“Three years is a long time as a manager at a club,” he said. “When I got the call off the chairman about coming here, the first thing I thought was the Bury situation.

“I wanted that longevity and I wanted to build a football product and a football club on really solid foundations.

“Hopefully I will get the chance. That was a very young team against Oldham on Tuesday night. They had the energy and excitement I want to see.”