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A lot has been said about the policing and stewarding of Notts supporters at Mansfield on Saturday. Now I'm not for one second going to claim that our fans are all angels, although find me a club that doesn't have it's fair share of idiots, but year in year out when we go to Mansfield we get treated like absolute dirt, and it's becoming a joke. When we go to Mansfield, we're banned from the town centre and pubs. When they come to us they get free roam of the city. There was a pub near the station actually advertising itself as being open to Notts fans, yet when Notts fans arrived at Mansfield station police blocked the route towards the pub and forced us straight to the ground. I saw families with young children trying to make their own way to the ground, being told by police to wait and being forced to join the police escort to the ground. For what reason? Who's going to start a fight with a mum & dad and two young children? I know football is tribal, and that's what makes it so special. I don't like Mansfield one bit, but I think 99% of us are quite capable of walking to a ground without feeling the need to assault somebody for wearing a different football shirt to us. When we got to the ground it was supposed to be a full search policy before we were allowed in. Some people were not searched at all, some were searched in a completely over the top and somewhat degrading manner. I wasn't searched, yet my overnight bag was virtually emptied. Any need? You then get crammed into a small caged area behind the stand which is nowhere near big enough to accommodate that many fans. You've got young children and disabled people being squeezed in amongst that. You've then got completely needless heavy handed stewarding inside the ground, stewards trying to snatch flags from fans. I saw a steward physically grab a fan by the neck for taking photographs of our fans! Then coming out of the ground we're again herded like cattle back to the station, and then East Midlands Trains in their infinite wisdom lay on a train made up of 2 coaches to transport Notts fans back to Nottingham. We were crammed in like cattle, and you had police shouting at us to move down the train, even though we barely had room to breathe! If I had been on that train for much longer I would've been sick. We got hammered on the day and deservedly so, so this probably sounds like sour grapes, but come on, why do we get treated like animals? Not just us at Mansfield, but football fans in general. By no means am I saying it's like it was in the 70s and 80s, but it's far from good. Treat people like animals and they will behave like animals. It's 2017, surely they can now differentiate between normal football fans just going for a day out with their mates to watch their team, and complete idiots who are there with the sole intention of causing trouble. Share your thoughts about this feature on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.

It just gets better and better for Notts, who sit proudly atop the League Two table following impressive wins over Lincoln City and Exeter City. But now, arguably the biggest clash of the season for the Magpies, a trip to the One Call Stadium to face Mansfield Town this Saturday. Pride of Nottingham spoke to well-known photographer, Billy Davies 'nemesis' and Stags fan Dan Westwell to get the lowdown on his beloved team. Background: 43 years old, first Stags game 1986. Lots of favourite players over the years, George Foster, Paul Holland, Ian Bowling, Chris Greenacre, Michael Boulding, Bobby Hassell to name a few. What do you make of current owner John Radford? I love him. I can’t thank him enough for rescuing us 7 years ago. He’s put a lot of money into the club to get us out of that hellhole we were in for 5 years. I really hope we go up and even if it’s for just one season, I’d love it for us to get to the Championship to fulfil his dream & reward him for everything he has done for us. You were tipped as promotion contenders at the start of the season - what do you make of that tag? I think it was the bookies' ignorance. They looked at Steve Evans record of 9 promotions and the fact that we got our business done straightaway & it just made them stick us up as favourites. I think Luton, Exeter, Coventry, Swindon, Wycombe, Cambridge, Carlisle, Crewe, Port Vale should all have been above us in the odds table but the bookies aren’t usually wrong, let’s hope they’re right again in May. Steve Evans is a very Marmite manager - are you impressed with him as your manager? When he was appointed I kept pinching myself as i couldn’t believe how lucky we were. I still think we’re lucky although some of his antics are getting a bit embarrassing at the moment, but that’s Steve Evans. Marmite is a brilliant description of him. I would say more people hate him than like him, but i would also say that most clubs in L1 & L2 would love to have him as their Manager, as he’s been there and done it. His experience could be the difference between going up and not going up. He did well by getting all of our signings sorted in June/July, but that made a lot of ignorant people say “Mansfield are spending millions” and “Steve Evans is going to bankrupt Mansfield” but what they didn’t see is that he released 11 players and signed 11 players more or less in the same couple of weeks. Matt Green was on a big wage as were a couple of others, so getting rid of them made us able to sign proper quality players from League One. I don’t think we needed all the players we signed as we had the 4th best defensive record out of all 92 clubs last season, then he goes and signs 3 defenders, but he knows what he’s doing so we have to trust him. There are several East Midlands derbies in League Two this season - which is the biggest for you? The biggest derby for all Stags fans is Ch*sterfield. There is pure hatred there. I know there’s a few Notts fans who hate Stags but I’m afraid the feeling isn’t mutual with most of us. I always call our game ‘the friendly derby’ because that’s how we look at Notts. Don’t get me wrong we love to beat Notts the same as Ch*sterfield, but if you gave us a choice of who to take 6 points from, it would be the woolly ones every time. Lincoln is another derby game that’s tasty, on a par with Notts. There’s always a few idiots from all 3 clubs who like to cause trouble, as we’ve seen over the years. To back up my ‘friendly derby’ comment, we bring more fans to Notts than we get for home games, because people enjoy the trip to Nottingham, a few beers at the waterfront, Hooters, it’s easy to get to by train and of course with us not having electricity or water over in Mansfield it’s a big treat to visit a big city! Who are your squad's danger men? It’s hard to predict our danger men because on paper we’ve got a lot but on the pitch we’ve not really shown much danger apart from a brilliant 80 minutes against Luton. There’s a few who if they show their true potential will be a great asset. Paul Anderson, Jacob Mellis, Will Atkinson, Alex MacDonald, Calum Butcher & Alfie Potter all have got the potential to be match winners on their day and have got experience in the Championship/L1. We’ve also got former Notts defender Krystian Pearce who was player of the season last year. He scored twice against Grimsby recently so I’m sure he would like to grab a goal against his old club. What do you think the score/scorers will be? Predicting the game is impossible. My heart says we’ll win 2-0, my head says we’ll lose 0-2. I’d take a point if it was offered now, so I’ll go for a 0-0 draw and get splinters. May the best team win and hopefully it’s football that we’re talking about after the game. Share your thoughts about this Opposition View piece on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.

Notts County’s 10-game unbeaten run has come to an end as two goals from Mansfield Town forward Danny Rose condemned the Pies to a 3-1 derby defeat at the One Call Stadium. Rose pounced on a miscued headed backpass from Magpies captain Richard Duffy to guide the ball over Adam Collin, before adding a second from close range. Duffy’s own goal then capped off a miserable afternoon for the visitors, although Carl Dickinson did salvage a late consolation via a free kick. Here is what the Notts boss, some of the players and several fans had to say following the game. Kevin Nolan “I don’t think it was the tempo of the game that we struggled with, they just hit it high and long and we didn’t deal with it as well as we have done in previous games. “They harassed and they got in and around us and made a nuisance of themselves. “They had quality when they needed it too. Danny Rose was really good and Alex MacDonald also stood out. “When they did get the ball forward they did make something happen. “But I have no qualms with the result. Sometimes you just have to walk away and say fair play and they were better than us on the day. And that was what happened.” Players on social media The fans (from the Mansfield match discussion) Elite_pie: The start to the season we have had has been brilliant, and way better than I thought possible so Nolan and the squad deserve a lot of praise for their achievements so far. But I'm still full of anger and disappointment at the pitiful display we gave yesterday. Of all the places for the run to end, you just knew it would be there. When the inbreds started chanting "You're an embarrassment" I was 15 minutes ahead of them. I was thinking we were an embarrassment as soon as the third went in. It's becoming an annual humiliation, we seem to save our most inept display of the season for when we go there. It's the one game I want to win above all others, but yet again we handed them the points gift wrapped on a silver platter. This was a chance to put a hefty 12 point gap between the clubs and put serious pressure on Fatty Evans. Instead we've given their stuttering season a big boost. Even though I feared the worst, given the circumstances going into the game we blew it big time. Liampie: One game does not change or undo the good work being done. I just want to forget it and hope that it was nothing more than a one off. Chris: I wasn't impressed. I'm not saying this to be biased in any way, I've held back sharing my views so I could write my thoughts as clearly as I see them. I think the occasion firmly went out of the window before the kick off. The police didn't seem bothered, almost like it was an inconvenience for them to be attending the game (not all, but the majority I saw). I feel this, and certain stewards and barring on the impact before hand, there was one steward who was trying to have fights with fans before the getting into the ground. Mansfield looked brighter, they didn't seem nervous but I do think Field Mill was intimidating. Our players didn't look like a side that had been in decent form, in fact they didn't look like they knew each other. Richard Duffy was awful! but he wasn't the only awful thing yesterday. Mansfield was woeful on goal in the first half and resorted to diving at every opportunity, the referee for me really ruined the game. There was one free kick whereby a Stags player burst down the flanks and just dropped himself, there was no Notts player near to him but the referee still awarded him a free kick. It was baffling in truth! I do feel Mansfield played better, though if they call that a good performance god help them. It wasn't, they won because we simply was good at all and there was no 'team' visible from the Notts perspective. The score would probably be fairer at 2-1 but we made our own mistakes to grant the win to the Stags. Stewards were awful, they looked for trouble and there was a lot of biased behaviour. I can't accept we was poor, that we lost due to this and I can credit Mansfield for stopping us from playing - yet the club seems a disgrace when they hire people firmly looking to start trouble. Share your thoughts about this reaction piece on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.

Notts County saw their six-game winning streak come to an abrupt halt with a 3-1 defeat at local rivals Mansfield Town. The in-form Danny Rose grabbed a second-half brace before a Richard Duffy own goal killed off the game for the Magpies. Carl Dickinson, meanwhile, grabbed a consolation for County two minutes into added time with a superb 25-yard free-kick. Notts remain top of the table despite their defeat, however, acting almost as a kind of reprieve as Kevin Nolan sets about regrouping his charges. The club have posted the match highlights, so should you wish to see them again, here they are. Share your thoughts about the game on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.

Notts County saw their six-game winning streak come to an abrupt halt with a 3-1 defeat at local rivals Mansfield Town. The in-form Danny Rose grabbed a second-half brace before a Richard Duffy own goal killed off the game for the Magpies. Carl Dickinson, meanwhile, grabbed a consolation for County two minutes into added time with a superb 25-yard free-kick. Here is Chris's analysis of the game at the One Call Stadium. Was the result fair? I can’t disagree, though I think the score line is flattering because I don’t think either side played really well at all – but Mansfield were clearly the better side of the two competing at Field Mill yesterday. How did Notts play? Notts played like a side that wasn’t aware of how to play, they looked unfamiliar with each other and they failed to get grip of the game. It’s difficult, as I did think we played alright in spells in the first half. Second was just awful, and I’d have made changes before it had even kicked off. The fault for me was at the back, there was little to no organisation and we failed to deal promptly with the Stags. How did Mansfield Town play? They played well, with some good football being expressed by their players but I honestly wasn’t very impressed overall – I don’t think this was due to Notts being extremely poor, its more related to their negative tactics and repeated efforts to fool what was a very poor referee. Did our tactics work out? No, not at all. It was Coventry City all over again but on a worse level this time a round. Before the match the line-up looked as if Kevin Nolan was spot on with his selection, with many fans saying ‘he’s going for it isn’t he’ and it would have appeared to be the case. However, Carl Dickinson was a weak link at the back and Richard Duffy I felt was extremely poor. I would have risked playing Shola Ameobi from the start, and I hate to say it perhaps against Mansfield we shouldn’t have tried to force the passing football so much. But from the back, we were very ineffective – the midfield did try but seemed sluggish and unprepared. Our striker force stood no chance at all for these reasons. How did the referee perform? I didn’t rate him, I felt he gave an unfair home advantage and missed several blatant dives. He also tended to award every little issue that Mansfield players complained about, which sort of ruined the flow of the game. He wasn’t very quick to award anything to Notts at all, and there were times where he clearly missed incidents – but I doubt a better referee would have changed much. Who do we play next? Forest Green Rovers! Pardon the pun but we literally have to slaughter these. I fully expect Notts to be able to bounce back, but we have to go into the game being more prepared and more able to compete if things don’t go our way. How should we play them? We have to be cautious at the back, I would hate for us to play poorly against these and totally underestimate them. It’s clear on paper that Forest Green can leak goals, they have a decent midfield but they haven’t strengthened wisely for life within League Two. Notts must play higher up, we need to force them back in my opinion. This would allow more ground to be found within the middle of their pitch, and would allow us to play a better passing game. We missed pace against Mansfield, so for me Dan Jones needs to return if he is fit after suffering a hamstring injury against Lincoln City. I’d like to see Lewis Alessandra and Terry Hawkridge occupy the flanks and Robert Milsom and Ryan Yates in the centre. Mansfield fan comments (from Stagsnet) Yaxhamstag: Cracking atmosphere, match day experience is so much better than it has been in the past, so congratulations to all concerned at the club. Danny Rose was awesome, I thought the defence was solid, my one disappointment was our midfield (MacDonald excepted) as I thought given our purchases they would show a bit more quality on the ball....hopefully that will come. As for Hemmings, I thought he worked really hard and is just unlucky at the moment. He could/should have been credited with the second goal and would have had a tap-in if the third hadn't been an OG. Pleased he got a good reception when he came off and we should continue to back him. Once he gets one, he'll be fine. I also thought the one minute's applause was brilliant and moving. Top stuff all round. Chip63: Absolutely a great result today. Well done all you have made my day. Don't take the pish too much on the way out. Top of the league your having a laugh. Woodclanger1: Great result without even having to move up a gear by bringing Mellis on. They looked well drilled but very ordinary and limited to hoof it. We were no great shakes especially the first half in midfield but Butcher certainly stepped it up in the second half. Mirfin and Pearce solid again and the hard running of Rose and Sterling up front made them look very cumbersome at the back. Great day to be a Stags fan. Share your thoughts about this tactical analysis piece on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.

As amazing as Notts County have been for most of September, they sadly fell at the final - and arguably most challenging - hurdle as their League Two derby at Mansfield Town saw them head back down the A60 on the back of a 3-1 defeat. The first half was a scrappy affair but the Stags enjoyed several gilt-edged chances, the first of the game coming on six minutes when Alex MacDonald's lofted free-kick into the area was nodded by Kane Hemmings into the path of Danny Rose three yards out, but the latter was unable to control and get a decent shot at goal from close range as the ball bounced wide for a goal kick. Notts then attacked and Jorge Grant saw a curling effort deflect over onto the roof of the net for a corner, and on 18 minutes the Nottingham Forest loanee sent a free kick goalwards which Johnny Hunt hooked over the bar. Neither side was able to break the deadlock come the half-time whistle but Mansfield got off the mark early after the restart, with Richard Duffy making a hash of a headed backpass which allowed Rose to sneak in and lob the ball over Adam Collin. On 53 minutes County came close to drawing level during a goalmouth scramble scramble, but David Mirfin was well placed on the line to deny Jonathan Forte from seven yards. Three minutes late, the visitors were two down as Omari Sterling-James's cross to the far post allowed Hemmings to send a header goalwards which Collin turned onto the post, with Rose pouncing on the rebound and drilling home. Rose was involved again as the Stags claimed a third, a low cross from the striker taking a deflection off Duffy and into the Notts net. Kevin Nolan's beleaguered charges did manage to net a consolation late on through a Carl Dickinson free kick, while Shaun Brisley headed against the bar deep into injury time, but it proved a comfortable win for Mansfield in the end and left the Notts boss with work to do on the training ground. Share your thoughts about this match report on Pride of Nottingham by signing up to the website, visiting the forum and joining in the chat with hundreds of fellow Notts County fans. Fancy showcasing your brand or business on Pride of Nottingham? Click here to find out more about sponsorship and advertising opportunities with us.