Left Stag: Mansfield Town take on Notts County

I'm on my postie round on another Saturday morning, in Nottingham. It's chilly and misty and every other doorstep is adorned with a seasonal pumpkin or autumnal wreath. I've just delivered a parcel to a famous Notts County-supporting film-director and I head back down the leafy, narrow street to the van. While I wait for my partner to return from his loop, I sit and breath, closing my eyes for a moment and letting myself feel the cold air on my cheeks. My brief meditation is interrupted, as so often, by the dopaminergic impulse to check my phone. I seem to be checking it more often today than is usual. As it's quiet, save for the birds in the gardens of these big houses, I open the Merlin app, the birdsong identifier that is apparently as addictive to the neuro-spicy brain as drugs or computer games. I press the record button and wait, trying not to rustle my coat.

A woman walks by, masking the small birds I know are in the hedges and trees Then a car and then a text message on my phone. Finally the street empties and the background noises abate, and I hold my breath - nothing. The birds I wanted to hear have all gone quiet, as if to taunt me...and then, a familiar sound. An annoying one. The rapid-fire, automatic gunshot cack-cack-cack-cack of the Magpie. I've heard and seen this bird a million times. I can see it now, in fact, dropping down from the tree up the street. The symbolism is immediately obvious. Today is the Nottinghamshire Derby. My Mansfield Town take on Notts County (The Magpies) at Field Mill, and I'll be travelling up straight after work. I think of the old rhyme - 'one for sorrow, two for joy' - and wait for another magpie to appear,  but it doesn't. Later that morning, when I see another one, I question whether that counts as 'two for joy' or if they needed to be seen together, before checking myself - "stop being mental". Funny how we only feel superstitious when it seems to matter. 

At the match, sat on the lower tier of the Ian Greaves Stand with my middle child, and separated from my dad and friends in a full house, it feels nice to have this fixture back again. Notts came up to League One last season, promoted through the playoffs and I was happy that they did. I know a lot of Notts fans, all decent blokes, and I've never had a problem with them, despite the local rivalry. In truth, it's something that has been somewhat manufactured in recent years. Younger County fans, in the absence of a true rival, have forged one in Stags. Young Stags fans, in the absence of fixtures against Chesterfield, have reciprocated, but for anyone of more than twenty years old, the fixture's derby status is up for debate.

I for one, am a proud Nottinghamshire lad, and like to see all three clubs from the county do well. As a student, I worked on the bars at both County and Forest. My sister's husband is a Notts fan. I've sat in every stand at Meadow Lane. There will be banter, one way or another, but never any animosity. As I take my seat, observe the remembrance ceremony and look over at the full away end to my left, I don't feel any nerves, just the sense of occasion. I'm ready to enjoy it.

So that's one paragraph about my subconscious anxiety surrounding the game and one paragraph about why it doesn't effect me like a proper derby. That may seem paradoxical, and it is, but all of that is what goes through my mind when it comes to this fixture. Do I want to win? Of course. Do I want to avoid defeat and have a laugh at the expense of the Notts fans at work or down the pub? Definitely. Does it mean more than most other fixtures? For sure. Are they our rivals? Sort of.

Ahead of kick-off, the stats are heavily stacked in our favour. Six games without defeat. No loss at home in eight months. We've won the last six fixtures against Notts at home and haven't lost here to them in twenty-one years. In all my seasons watching this fixture, both home and away, I've only seen us lose to them once. I get a text from a bloke at work. "I'll take a draw" he says. I bet you will, I think, but I won't. We have better players than Notts County. We've just won consecutive away games, 3-0 and 4-1 and we're flying. We should be beating these, surely. 

It never works like that. The opening fifteen minutes are scrappy. Both sides are giving it away, something you often see in a local derby. We need to get hold of it and play how we have been doing. The atmosphere has started well, but when Notts create several half-chances and suddenly get to grips with the tempo, the respective crowds react. The Mansfield fans go quiet, reflecting the momentum shift, and you don't need the Merlin app to identify who is making the noise.

The Notts fans work their way through the repertoire of away end classics. You may be familiar with such popular hits as, "Is this a library?", "Mansfield's a sh*thole, I wanna go home" and "Can you hear the Mansfield sing?" - the answer is no, you can't. After early injury sub Cal Roberts fires in a worldie from outside the box, you can forget about it. The Stags fans are stunned. We just aren't turning up here. Under Clough, it's so rare to have an off day that when it happens, it take's you aback.

We watch on, hoping for a shift in formation, tempo, momentum, but it never comes. Notts keep up their sensible passing, good pressing and singing from the stands. They get a deserved second goal after our best passer, Louis Reed, puts it on a plate for Daniel Kanu, and finally Notts County are going to be able to say they've won at Field Mill. It was bound to happen at some point. On ninety minutes, more out of habit than any real hope of a surge in dopamine, I look to my phone. I've got four messages already. Gleeful texts and AI images of Magpies stepping on Stags. All week at work, I'll get it in person. I'd be doing the same. 

The aftermath of the game is a autopsy. Injuries, fitness, desire, tactics and the reactions of fans and coaches in the heat of the moment - all are poured over. Stags luckily have another game, three days later, and a chance to correct this. They draw 0-0 at Wigan, a decent point, but another dodgy passing performance. The same is true of the first half against Macclesfield, in the cup, before we run out 3-0 winners. Good and bad runs have always been a feature of Clough's management at Mansfield, but a big measure of how much this season's side is an improvement on the last one, will be how they respond to a big set-back like the Notts game. In the week when Nigel has surpassed the great Ian Greaves as the clubs longest-serving manager, two clean sheets since Notts reminds me that he is the man to do it.

We now have a big break until November 21 until the next league game. Time to iron out the creases, and maybe another one of Cloughie's famous jollyboys' outings to rouse moral. Before all that though, we have a Tuesday night Jersey Mike's Trophy dead-rubber against Chesterfield, at home. They've sold out the away end and, although I hope we rest first-team players, and I hate what this tournament stands for, I'd rather our reserves draw to them here, than go twenty-one years without losing to Notts County.