Mansfield Town get official apology over offside goal that forced FA Cup replay at Charlton

Mansfield Town vs. Charlton Athletic
Bobby Olejnik and Krystian Pearce remonstrate with the referee after Charlton's equaliser. — Mansfield Town vs. Charlton Athletic Bobby Olejnik and Krystian Pearce remonstrate with the referee after Charlton's equaliser.

Stags were furious Toby Stevenson’s equaliser was allowed to stand by referee Ollie Yates 17 minutes from the end of the 1-1 draw and their views have now been backed by the Referee’s Association which is a small crumb of comfort for Stags boss David Flitcroft.

“The Referees’ Association has apologised for the offside goal. We’ve had that sent through and I do respect them for that,” he said.

“There is a procedure that they want to make referees better and I am all for that. I help them in different ways to try to do that.”

He added: “It was a fantastic performance from us at the One Call last week and it has given us the opportunity to go down to London and represent us again – and we’ll be doing that with everything we’ve got.”

Stags will stay in London overnight after the game in a change from their usual midweek away arrangements.

Flitcroft said: “The trip down there will have a feelgood factor. We will be spending a lot of time with each other.

“We are actually going to stay down there after the game as we didn’t get home from Morecambe last month until about 4am due to motorway closures.

“So the club has allowed us to stay after the game, get the right food on board and do a session down there for recovery.

“It gives us more control and we’re not getting back at stupid o’clock.

“What that does is give us a chance to prepare for a massive game at Lincoln on Saturday.”

CJ Hamilton, who scored Mansfield’s goal against Charlton and then bagged the winner in Saturday’s 1-0 home win over Port Vale said the squad were enjoying cup fever today.

“We are buzzing about going down to Charlton,” he smiled.

“We could have beaten them up here last week and hopefully we can go down there and beat them at what is a nice stadium.

“We don’t fear anyone this season as you can see from our results.

“We’ve already played well in a cup game this season against a League One side, Accrington, and also a Championship side, West Brom.

“We don’t show any fear and hopefully we can go down there and do the same thing on Tuesday.”