Mansfield Town's Field Mill

Field Mill has been good to Lincoln down the years and I have never personally seen Lincoln City lose there. It's a fairly modern ground but there is one stand that lets it down, other than that there are excellent facilities available in one of my favourite grounds to visit.

Ahh Mansfield, my home town but enough of being sentimental. We (as in I decided and everyone followed and then claimed it was their idea as usual) to go on the train to Mansfield. We took the route stopping at Worksop and then travelling down on a different train from there. This route is far simpler (and shorter) than the journey via Nottingham.

The journey dropped us off just on the edge of a large bridge you can see the ground immediately from the train station. Infact, it was pretty much right at the other end of the bridge, just beyond a Blockbuster video and Burger King outlet.

We had gone quite early so we decided to have a quick look around Mansfield and were generally greeted quite well with smiles and everything, also the occasional dirty look, this was a local derby after all. We all went into the pub after having some lunch nearby and played pool and fussball, it was a rather nice pub but I can't remember the name of it now, it was at the bottom of the hill.

However, this is when some of the issues started. We tried to leave at around half past one but were told that we couldn't leave as they wanted to avert as much trouble possible as possible. So in other words, City fans could go in but they couldn't leave, something they neglected to tell you until you were already inside. We went to sat outside in the garden thing and noticed the gate was open so we went out that way and go up to the ground.

After finally getting into the away end, it felt like you were lost because you emerged into an area with no side stairs or anything so you have to walk along a long row of seats. The stand we were in was quite good although like most other "new" stands, had a very plastic feel to it, a big blue stand with "STAGS" in big yellow writing and it was an excellent view of the playing action. There was good leg room and I was surprised that they decided to change this end to make it the away stand rather than the home stand it had been in recent seasons.

The stand to our left wasn't being used except by the media. The far stand was the one away fans used to occupy, this was also a good stand which provided an excellent view of the action although was a bit smaller than the stand we now occupied. The final stand was a large (for this level of football) two tiered stand which holds roughly 6,500. This stand was very nice with a good colour scheme and the atmosphere came from this stand from all the local hooligans.

My fondest memory of the limited atmosphere at Field Mill is in the 2003/4 season when in the 3rd minute, they were chanting "E I E I E I O" and half way through, our player smashed the ball in from 35 yards and shut them up. The atmosphere at Filed Mill is near enough non-existent and even worse when they're losing.

I would recommend Mansfield to any fan as it is a worthy addition to the 92. I certainly hope to visit this ground many more times. There are trains near enough all the time, meaning that you could get in and out of Mansfield quickly, although if you're going for a night game it is advised that the last train leaves before the game would finish.