Spare a thought for Mansfield Town !

[JohnG]

For quite a while now Stags fans have been very unhappy with the Chairman who controversially sacked Keith Curle and then Mansfield went downhill after that. A few months ago the chairman arranged to sell their best goal scorer to Hartelpool against the wishes of the manager and the player. The player involved (Richie Barker) said he did not want to leave, and so it all went quiet for a while. The other week the manager was sacked and an ex manager appointed - it would appear he's been employed as a Yes-Man by the chairman. Today Richie Barker was sold to Hartlepool.
The Stags are now hovering dangerously near to dropping out of the league completely with a Chairman who will sell "at the right price". A sad time for Stags supporters.

[Boy Named Sue]

My sympathies. When I used to live in Cambridge I went to see United play and I've kept an eye out for them since; past couple of years they've been heading down the same route as Mansfield - no money, too much politics in the boardroom, having to seel everything. They're now out of the League and at the wrong end of the Conference table (three points above relegation zone). It ain't pretty. My best wishes in getting out of the situation.

[JohnG]

According to the SSA (the Stags Supporters Association) website the chairman received an unbudgeted amount of £125,000 for Liam Lawrence a while ago and the fans most common song since then has been "Where's the money gone?".

[JohnG]

Well this whole sorry saga has now reached the pages of Private Eye !

Is Mansfield MP Alan Meale attempting to score an own goal? The football-supporting MP is attempting to force the official supporters' website of Mansfield Town F.C. to hand over the names of two fans that made allegedly libellous comments about him on a message board.

Stagsnet, the website of the Stags Supporters Association (SSA), had voluntarily removed the offending remarks, which followed more than a year of scandal at the club. The Labour MP had repeatedly defended majority shareholder and sole director Keith Haslam. Mr Haslam had to apologise to the League Two club in December 2005 after the Guardian revealed he had taken out large personal loans from the club's cash. Mansfield Town hit the headlines again last summer with allegation that the club had drawn money for salaries from it's associated charity, the Stags Community Trust, of which Mr Meale is the chairman. Meanwhile a SportEngland audit found that more than £23000 of lottery money had been misspent by the club, including £255 on a parking fine.

In August a judge at Manchester county Court described a club disciplinary process against its former manager Keith Curle, which was chaired by Alan Meale, as "a sham".

In a statement, the SSA's committee said that being taken to court by the MP had been "very stressful" for them as volunteers. "SSA have had no other option than to follow legal advice throughout" they said. "The judge ordered the release of registration details and found our conduct to be entirely proper and reasonable and endorsed such conduct by ordering Mr Meale to pay SSA's legal costs."

But Mr Meale has told local press in Mansfield that he intends to win that money back with a libel action against the two fans - an interesting approach to protecting his constituents.

[miceri]

1st team I ever saw play.

My dad, who is definately not a fooy nut, tried to 'bond' us with his local team.

Much the same as his dad did I guess. I was between 6-8, can't really remember it. Well, apart from it was very cold and I wanted to go home...

Stood on the terraces though . I'm alot more into footy now, always look out for towns results.

My fear is they will go ka-put soon .

[JohnG]

It gets worse ! On Saturday a photographer was ejected from the ground and will be charged later this week. This taken from mansfieldtoday.co.uk

Ejected photographer thanks Stags' fans
The freelance photographer thrown out of Field Mill for displaying a 'Haslam Out' photograph on his laptop today thanked the hundreds of fans who sent him messages of support.
Dan Westwell has been charged with a public order offence after being ejected from the ground, arrested and taken to Mansfield Police Station - because there was a photograph of a 'Haslam Out' sign on the screen of his laptop.
His dismissal during Saturday's 2-1 win over Division II leaders Walsall, by both stewards and police, prompted loud chants against Stags' owner Keith Haslam from a large section of the crowd.
Earlier in the day renewed protests against Mr Haslam had begun with signs being erected on roads across the area, a petition being gathered outside the ground and chants for him to quit the football club once the game got underway.
Tonight Dan, who is due to appear in court on Friday and has been threatened with a banning order from football grounds, said: "I was absolutely stunned at what happened . . . as far as I was concerned I was just doing my job as I do every week following Mansfield Town all over the country .
"I still haven't been told why I was ejected from the ground, but if it was because I'd got 'Haslam Out' photos on my laptop, I had taken those the previous night around Junction 29.
"It is my job to cover a 'newsworthy' story around Mansfield. When I got my laptop out, they were on there as I opened up my software to sort out the photos from the Walsall game.
"As I was led out of the ground the 'Haslam Out' chants were deafening and when I looked at the magnificent fans in the West Stand and Quarry Lane end, they were giving me a standing ovation and chanting my name.
" I would also like to thank each and every Mansfield Town supporter for their amazing support and backing that I have been shown since the incident.
"I have had hundreds of emails, text messages, phone calls and also seen several Internet message boards where there are hundreds of people supporting me. I can't thank you all enough for that support."

[JohnG]

Worse still the Chairman has banned the local paper from printing their fixture list ! :-

STAGS supremo Keith Haslam today withdrew permission for the Chad to use the club's fixtures for the forthcoming season in this week's newspaper.
Chad has to pay a large sum of money each year to advertise the club's fixtures and also gain a letter of permission from the club to do so.

That permission was given last month but today, on the day the fixtures were released, Chad were informed the club had withdrawn that permission.

Mr Haslam has also withdrawn permission for the Nottingham Evening Post and Football Post to use the fixtures too.

[overkill]

What a total . It's jokers like him that blight football at the lower levels. It makes you wonder if the old days of 'bowler hat' type chairmans were so bad after all. Yes they did very little, but sometimes it's better that way. As long as the grounds were safe, and the clubs ticked along everyone was happy.

Now we get these 'flyboys' who want to make a name for themselves, with plenty of 'business plans' and 'long term solution platforms', yet no clue about how to run a football club.

Yanks and 'flash merchants' like that sad act at Mansfield will be the death of the game in England.

[JohnG]

Haslam keeps going on about "getting bums on seats", but doesn't seem to notice that the crowds for home games have gone down since he started acting up and milking the club. Before that there were often sell-outs of 9 or 10,000 but now it's down to about 2 to 3,500 thousand. Lots of people do not want their money going to this man.
To back this statement up, when Mansfield played away just down the road at Notts County there were 4,047 there from Mansfield - more than for most of the home games this season.
The fans have tried to buy the club but he always prices it out of their reach. He appointed a new Chairman a couple of months ago and he has now just been done for drinking and driving..... the sorry saga continues.

[JohnG]

Well the saga continues and after a couple of months of local businessmen trying to form a consortium to buy the club, there is now the prospect of the bloke who sold the York City ground to build a supermarket taking over
This bloke sounds like a total nutcase - just read this :-

Stags to be renamed Harchester United ?

I had to look at the date to see if it was April 1st after I read that.

[la gran siete]

It reminds me of Brighton and Hove albion which basically nearly went out of existence because of the actions of wide boy directors/ chairman back in the eighties They lost their ground and now have to make to do with an inadequate ground that barely houses 8000 fans. How they have managed to survive in the league is extraordinary, even more so given they are challenging for playoff place in div1. They now have decent chairman a good academy and good manager in Dean Wilkins( Rays brother).

[la gran siete]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Well the saga continues and after a couple of months of local businessmen trying to form a consortium to buy the club, there is now the prospect of the bloke who sold the York City ground to build a supermarket taking over
This bloke sounds like a total nutcase - just read this :-

Stags to be renamed Harchester United ?

I had to look at the date to see if it was April 1st after I read that.

probably not a bad idea

"C'mon you Harchers"Sounds good.

[JohnG]

Not to the good folk of Mansfield it doesn't !!
The other annoying thing this bloke has said is that he's purely in it for the money and is not interested in talking to supporters, he's only interested in talking to customers.

[JohnG]

Something else to mention is that the current owner (Haslam) spent £500,000 of the clubs money on some land jsut outside of town in order to build a training academy a couple of years ago. This has never been built and he still owns the land and the club hasn't received the money back.

[Decadence]

Harchester? The guy should be ashamed...he's obviously not a football man. Depressing story.