Why the future is bright as Mansfield Town go within touching distance of their best league finish in 47 seasons
It’s hard to believe that the season is all but done and dusted for another year.
It doesn’t seem two minutes since the players got out their boots and us journalists our phone voice recorders as Stags prepared to get the 2025/26 campaign underway on a sunny night in Retford.
Fast-forward to the present day and we’ve had what Nigel Clough has rightly described as ‘an outstanding nine months.’
Stags went into the new campaign with the aim of survival first and foremost on the agenda, but a survival that left more room to breathe at the end of the season and showed progress while they were at it.
It looked like it was going to be touch and go at one stage with Stags slipping into the bottom four after a disappointing defeat to Stockport on December 20.
What looked a little dodgy has since transformed into Mansfield’s most successful season in terms of league position for decades.
You have to go all the way back to the iconic 1986/87 season, which saw Ian Greaves’ men finish 10th in the Third Division on their way to the famous Wembley win, to find a Stags team finishing higher in the pyramid.
Unbelievably, a positive result against Cardiff City could see Stags end the season inside the top ten and give the club its best finish since Mansfield’s single season in the second tier back in the 1977/78 season.
The transformation in the second half of the season has been remarkable with Stags winning 39 points from the last 24 matches to leave them sixth in the form table and with the tightest defence in the league.
But those cracking stats don’t tell the full story of the improvements made on the pitch and the foundations that are now in place.
Stags have created a real identity as a squad who will give everything for the badge week in week out and a team which is absolutely rock-solid at the back.
They’ve battled, fought and sweated as a collective for a stunning 16 clean sheets that give Stags a chance of winning any game.
While it’s probably fair to say no team in League One will fear Stags, you can also put the boot firmly on the other foot and say Mansfield do not need to fear anyone either.
Whoever the opposition is, they know they will have to compete - and compete very hard - if they are to get anything out of Mansfield.
You don’t fluke wins at Luton, Huddersfield, Stockport and Barnsley, or lose just one away game against the top ten sides over the course of a season.
This squad has plenty of quality and depth to it now - more than a lot of people give it credit for - with the consistency in results despite recent injuries and squad rotation testament to that development.
You can buy quality perhaps, but you can’t always buy the heart and desire to win or team spirit. The Stags squad is one that is bonded tight right now and ‘one of the best dressing rooms to be in’ according to any player you ask.
It’s a squad full of confidence and the knowledge that they more than belong at League One level. It is a squad that has something about them.
Fifteen seasons ago Stags ended a demoralising season by finishing 12th in what is now the National League with a 2-0 defeat at Bath on the final day of the season. If anything makes you realise just how far Stags have come then perhaps it is that.
So let’s enjoy this brilliant journey for what it is and see where it can take us. Enjoy the summer break Stags fans and let us all eagerly await a new season full of promise and expectation. A season in which Stags can ruffle some feathers and have a genuine bash at a top six spot.
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