I'm absolutely chuffed to bits to have stumbled across the site. Whoever's got it going since the genuine tragedy of Paul's passing deserves alot of praise. I was a member of the the original FCStPauli.org.uk board and met many of you at the SC Wattenscheid game. I brought a couple of lads with me who were Ipswich fans - I'm not sure if Paul the Canary was that pleased about it up front but they joined the FCStP family and we still follow the boys in brown from afar.

Originally I'd starting following FCStP through Elfmeter fanzine in the late 80's/early 90's and then regularly attended matches in the south and west, such as away at Duisburg and Karlsruhe, when studying in Trier in 97/97. This was a 1. Bundesliga season. That Regionalliga game against SCW was however my first trip to the Millerntor and I'll always be grateful to Paul for his efforts in making it happen. A great fella.

My first love is however the Mighty Mansfield. And despite the fact that sometimes the atmosphere can be ghostly when we're playing sides who bring 15 travelling fans to the Mill, I'm actually quite glad that we dropped out of the league last year. Without that happening I'm not sure if we'd ever have got rid of a chairman who abused his position as the custodian of our town's best known representatives (before Rebecca Adlington's exploits in Beijing!). The truth is that despite a recent bad run, we've won lots of matches, I've stood up (or bounced!) at most matches and most importantly I know that the money I pay to get in is being used to benefit our town at the heart of our community. Some of the very same reasons why I love FCStP too. Well, maybe apart from the one about winning lots of matches!

Come on you boys in brown! Yeeeeeellllloooooowwwwssss!

Respect....a drop down to The Conference must have been a real blow...glad to hear you've got rid of that idiot Chairman...who do these people think they are?..... .here's hoping The Stags can make their way back soon.

Nice to see you've found us. I vaguely remember the Wattenscheid game, but not a lot else, so I couldn't say I recall meeting you.
I've a bit of a soft spot for the Stags, as I grew up on the north side of Nottingham. I recall seeing them play Partick Thistle in the Anglo Scottish Cup, but I can't remember when it was, or the score.

Jack Sparrow wrote:

Respect....a drop down to The Conference must have been a real blow...glad to hear you've got rid of that idiot Chairman...who do these people think they are?..... .here's hoping The Stags can make their way back soon.

I'll second that.
Besides always enjoying our away trips to Mansfield (and having the craic with your chaps when you came up to Bury), I'm one of the old buggers on here who can remember The Stags turning over a West Ham side that included Moore, Hurst, Peters and Brooking.

[quote="Shakers"]

Jack Sparrow wrote:

I'm one of the old buggers on here who can remember The Stags turning over a West Ham side that included Moore, Hurst, Peters and Brooking.

Old Git

and its the big match tonight Stags V Oxford.....hope you get a win Gelb...

Thanks for the welcome all. Glad to hear that Stags have not been forgotten. I seem to remember a Bury fan at that Wattenscheid game. Was that you Shakers? Looks like Stephen Dawson is enjoying Gigg Lane as much as I used to enjoy my trips there. Though hopefully he's not eating as many pies!

There's no doubt that the drop to the BSP has been a real challenge to everything that I thought I knew about lower league football. It is genuinely a strange experience being seen by everybody, apart from maybe Wrexham and Oxford, as a major force. Earlier this season York fans were unbelievably delighted to see us bring 400 to a Tuesday night away game. Now I understand why they were so pleased to welcome a club with a good away following.

To be honest it actually got a bit too comfortable thinking that no matter how bad the results were, there was a sort of moral superiority associated with supporting a club with such a history of very little footballing achievement (and for a long time the lowest wages of all 92 clubs, to the extent that we lost a lot of players to BSP clubs looking for a pay rise... and no doubt a bit more professionalism, given the chaos of the prevous regime).

A few months into non-league life there's definitely an undercurrent of unease amongst the Stags faithful at the BSP's desire to ensure that 'no club is above its rules, especially not a big club like Mansfield'. The recent points deduction was imposed for an error made during the mayhem of Haslam's exit* (which incidentally is still not over, given the fact that the final documents still haven't been signed off) and in truth, our administration at that time was definitely more 'small club' than that of any other team currently in the BSP. Along with the recent poor run of results (including a 2nd half capitulation in the 'big game' home to Oxford. Sorry!), the deduction means that our chances of returning straight back to the league are looking very slim just now.

Nevertheless, like I said before, Mansfield Town still exists and the money we put into it goes towards developing the club. Sounds simple but its taken us a long time to get here. So I'm still feeling pretty good about things.

And at least we're maintaining our 100% record against my now local club, Leeds United. Played two, won two. Nice.

* A day before the season started, we had 6 players signed up. McEwan called in favours and we made up the 11. Faxes were sent to the BSP to register the players before the deadline. Two matches later the BSP asked why we were playing unregistered players. We showed them the receipts for faxes sent to their number. Typically though, we didn't have any evidence of what was actually contained in those faxes. As a result we were deducted the number of points gained in those 2 games. We were quite good then, so we lost 4 points. I wonder what would have happened if they'd had deducted points from our more recent run of form!

Gelb wrote:

I seem to remember a Bury fan at that Wattenscheid game. Was that you Shakers? Looks like Stephen Dawson is enjoying Gigg Lane as much as I used to enjoy my trips there. Though hopefully he's not eating as many pies!

No mate, not me at that game. There are at least half a dozen of us (including at least two more forum members) from 'this end' that go to see St Pauli occasionally (in my case I can't manage more that an average of a game a season). There are also a few Bury lads that live in and around Hamburg that go more regularly.
Yes, 'Awesome Dawson' is probably the most consistently good player we have in the current squad.

Gelb wrote:

Thanks for the welcome all. Glad to hear that Stags have not been forgotten. I seem to remember a Bury fan at that Wattenscheid game. Was that you Shakers?

I was at the game, and I reckon it was either 06-02-02 or DJAsh.

saw mansfield town about three years ago , fa cup 3rd round at newcastle ( it was u wasn t it?) . Your squad seemed to have played pretty well on that day if my memories aren t playing me tricks.

best of luck with the season

That was definitely us. At that time we were playing well and had some good players, even by our standards. Most of them are now in the top 2 divisions, like Liam Lawrence and Leroy Williamson. The Toon were in a typical state of turmoil and we dominated the game. Unfortunately for us, Shearer wanted his record equalling goal and he got it with a penalty to knock us out.

Most interesting thing about it though was that we'd sold our allocation out up in the gods and so plenty of us Stags bought tickets all over the home section. I wasn't sure how it'd go down but when the locals saw my yellow scarf, everyone seemed desperate to tell me that they were looking for a Stags' win as that might hasten the departure of Graeme Souness!

I guess we would never really be seen as a threat by Toon fans but nevertheless it was an astoundingly friendly welcome. Thanks for the memories!

PS I once made the naive assumption that as China Drum and Leatherface played alot together on the road, they must be from the same place. I think I pointed this out a bit too loudly at one gig in Derby and was asked very politely by the NUFC beanie wearing guitarist to leave the room!

PPS Latest rumour is that David Holdsworth will be replacing Billy McEwan as Stags boss. Not Gary McAllister. Even though he seemed to be angling for it. Or at least, I thought that explained Leeds' recent run.