Saturday, 20^th December 2025.

Matchday: Mansfield Town v County, League 1.

I wouldn’t normally watch Wrexham live but as their game against Swansea was the only game in town last night, I broke my own rule. It worked out alright in the end, Swansea wining 2-1, the highlight being some comedy goalkeeping by Okonkwo which led to the wining goal. McClean was his usual thuggish self, his sneaky clip with a boot on the back of an opponent’s head and a forearm smash on the back of another’s neck would have earned anybody else a second yellow. As it was, the second offence sparked a general shemozzle between the two benches, resulting in yellow cards for some of the more excitable participants.

A civilised departure time for the Flyer today, although the closure of Lowndes Lane meant we had to assemble on Dialstone Lane. We were forty souls all told, so there was room to stretch out for those of us who were that way inclined. The trip to Mansfield over Woodhead and the M1 was uneventful, but as sure as night follows day we ended up at the wrong end of the ground. We had to drive past to carry out a three point turn in a nearby haulage yard then drive back to the retail park that backs on to the away stand. If we ever go to Field Mill without going through that ritual, I’ll consider it a sign that the end days are upon us.

The One Call Stadium is looking much better now the Bishop Street Stand is habitable again.

I got 9/11 for my team selection, I’d gone for Joe Olowu and Tayo Edun instead of Odin Bailey and Jayden Fevrier:

The early exchanges followed the now-common pattern of County showing well and Jack Diamond getting taken out when breaking free. There seems little doubt that opposing teams see Jack as a major threat and intend to mark his card early doors. The referee, in what was to become the hallmark of his afternoon, did nothing about it. Ben Hinchliffe had to be at his caprine best six minutes in to tip a shot from Evans over the bar. Ollie Norwood wasn’t quite his usual self but nevertheless he exuded his normal air of calm as he knocked the ball around as though the rest of the world was standing still. Malik Mothersille continued to frustrate, he found a few good positions but his final ball was never quite on point. The Stags went one up after twenty-eight minutes when a bout of penalty area pinball concluded with the ball bouncing off Kyle Wootton into the net. Jayden Fevrier hadn’t seen much of the ball up to this stage but he created the equaliser on forty-two minutes by surging down the right, shrugging off a defender and firing in a low cross which hit a defender and flew into the net.

During the half time break I continued my quest to master the controls of the electric waistcoat. I think once the really cold weather arrives, i.e. when only 10% of County fans are in shorts, I’ll don the thermal long johns but leave the waistcoat to do the rest.

The second half continued in the same vein as the first; neither team grasping the initiative and the officials getting most things wrong. DC tried to freshen things up by replacing Mothersille and Fevrier with Lowe and Olowu on the hour. Ten minutes later we were ahead, Ben Osborn crossed the ball to Jack Diamond who got tremendous air to send a header looping into the Mansfield net in front of the visiting fans. And lo, great was the rejoicing thereof. Odin Bailey required treatment on the pitch a few minutes later, so Dave Challinor decided to change him and Ollie Norwood for Owen Dodgson and Jack Hunt. Norwood was instructed to take the shortest route off the pitch and it struck me as odd that he decided to walk past the end where the home fans were rather than take the acclaim of the blue army. There was a delay in play shortly afterwards while the referee talked to the home bench, followed by a muffled announcement over the Tannoy to do with verbal abuse. It would seem that Norwood received some abuse as he was walking round the pitch and complained about it to the officials. The game ploughed on with Mansfield huffing and puffing in pursuit of an equaliser to little effect and Nathan Lowe putting himself about but finding himself offside more often than not. There was some confusion around how much injury time the referee had decreed, the board said eight, the PA said six and we actually played about ten. Che Gardner replaced Tyler Onyango after ninety-two minutes and provided some extra threat down the left-hand side. We never looked in too much trouble but it was still a relief when the whistle went for full time.

There were joyous scenes at the end with the players applauding the fans and vice versa, Ollie Norwood giving it particularly large with the fist pumps.

The trip home passed quickly enough, enlivened by the first hour or so of Spurs v Liverpool, in which Spurs might have achieved more if they’d concentrated on playing rather than self-destructing. We were back in SK about 7:10, which was nice.

Today’s tune is a rock version of “Jingle Bells” as a reminder of the scenes after the final whistle:

Sunday, 21^st December 2025.

A quick look at their forum suggests that if the Mansfield fans aren’t happy with the defeat, they are at least taking it in a pragmatic fashion. That’s more than can be said for Nigel Clough, whose post-match interview is an object lesson in shifting the blame. He even wants the match to be replayed because he thinks the referee blew for half time a minute early.

Other results went for us; the only other winners among the top six were our Boxing day opponents, Lincoln, who beat Cardiff 2-1.

The league table shows us back up to fifth, three points behind Lincoln in second with a game in hand. We’ll have to play well to beat them but it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.

PPG Prophet’s graph shows the familiar post-win uptick and it’s good to see that, despite our recent inconsistent form, we’re still in touch with the leaders.

Today’s tune is the very wonderful Dave Edmunds’ version of “Run, Run Rudolph”:

Monday, 22^nd December 2025.

County Ladies didn’t have a game this week, the action from that quarter was to wish their captain, Kenedy Owen, a happy birthday.

The club’s Community Trust have been even more active than ever recently, today’s highlight was a Christmas social for players from all the Walking Football groups.

TSBW’s Match Review Pod this week took a forensic look at the first league win at Mansfield in forty-two years. It was brought to us by Jimmy Harmer, Dan Culverwell, Dave Whitehouse and Steve Bardsley.

• The team:
  • Hinchliffe.
  • Pye, Hills, Onyango.
  • Osborn, Fevrier.
  • Bailey, Norwood.
  • Mothersille, Diamond.
  • Wootton.
• Tyler Onyango: We’re more used to seeing him as a wingback, so with him as a centre half and Jayden Fevrier at wingback, which isn’t his best position, there was a possibility of us getting turned but after a couple of dodgy moments it turned out OK.
• First half: Mansfield had plenty of chances and tried to exploit what they perceived as a weakness by firing balls over the top. Ethan Pye’s early yellow probably encouraged them in this belief. Their goal had a touch of fortune about it, the ball hitting Kyle Wootton and flying into the net. The old firm of Ollie Norwood and Odin Bailey were working the ball around quickly in midfield but Jack Diamond and, especially, Malik Mothersille were profligate with a couple of chances they generated. The referee and the linesman on our left were hopeless, the liner missed a couple of offsides by failing to keep up with play and the ref was inconsistent with his decisions and yellow cards. He did at least wave Fevs on as he shrugged a defender off on his way to crossing the ball for our goal. Nigel Clough thought it was a foul but as my late Mother used to say, we all know what “thought” did; followed the dustcart and thought it was a wedding.
• Second half: No substitutes at first and Town started well. With the help of Joe Olowu and Nathan Lowe who replaced Jayden Fevrier and Malik Mothersille, County fought back and this culminated in Jack Diamond’s headed goal on sixty-eight minutes. Given the referee’s inconsistencies, we perhaps dodged a bullet when Brad Hills outstrengthed a home forward in the penalty area, it could easily have gone the other way. Jack Hunt and Owen Dodgson came on to replace Ollie Norwood and Odin Bailey, presumably to shore things up even further. Once into injury time, Che Gardner came on for Tyler Onyango and did very well again.
• Fist pumps: Special occasions only, or not at all?
• Corners: We didn’t get a single one in the whole game. That can’t happen very often.

An entertaining summation of an excellent afternoon, watch it here:

Today’s tune continues the theme of non-mawkish seasonal music with The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping”:

Tuesday, 23^rd December 2025.

County U21s played Cardiff City in the Premier League Cup at Radcliffe Borough’s ground last night. I was disappointed that I couldn’t go due to the choice of venue and a late dental appointment, it sounds like a good game. Here’s the lineup:

It was all square at half time but County took the points with two goals from Joe Astles in the 59^th and 85^th minutes. The Bluebirds’ single reply was a penalty in the 80^th minute. The win was the first for County in this season’s competition, leaving them bottom of Group F as it stands:

TSBW’s Match Preview Pod for Boxing Day’s match against Lincoln City was brought to us by Steve Bardsley and Ben Ward of the Stacey West Podcast.

• The Podcast: The pod takes its name from the away end stand at Sincil Bank, which in turn commemorates two City fans, Bill Stacey and Jim West, who lost their lives in the 1985 Bradford City fire.
• Ownership: Chairman Clive Nates is a former hedge fund manager from South Africa who has been involved with the club since 2016. He has been instrumental in bringing a good deal of American investment into the club in recent years.
• Manager: Michael Skubala followed an unusual route to management, including teaching PE, DOF at Loughborough University and managing the England Futsal team.
• Fans’ expectations: Based on their budget and the big turnover in the playing staff before the season stated, an upper-mid table slot looked achievable so they’re delighted with second place so far.
• Players to watch:
  • Jack Moylan: An attacking midfielder signed from League of Ireland side Shelbourne in January 2024.
  • Reeco Hackett: St. Lucia international striker with a history including Bromley, Southend United and Portsmouth.
  • Conor McGrandles: An experienced midfielder in his third spell with the club.
  • Tom Hamer: A defender with a fashionable and effective long throw.
• Formation: They generally favour 4-2-3-1, aren’t afraid to let the opposition have the ball and will break quickly. Dangerous at set pieces.
• Players in common:
  • Lewis Fiorini: Did well there while on loan from Manchester City.
  • Jack Diamond: Jack was on loan with them when his career was interrupted by the charges against him.
  • Kyle Wootton: Kyle had a spell on loan there in their non-league days.
• Score prediction: Flying in the face of our home form, Ben would be delighted with a 1-1 draw.

Another excellent outing for the preview pod, watch it in full here:

The club’s Community Trust continued their excellent work on the run-up to Christmas by spending time at the Wellspring’s Christmas Lunch, helping to serve around seventy-five meals to guests on the day.

Today’s (relatively) shmaltz-free Christmas tune is The Pretenders’ “2,000 Miles”:

Wednesday, 24^th December 2025.

The club’s highlights of the first-time-in-42-years victory at Mansfield are up now. We really did dodge a bullet with the penalty shout, I’m not saying it was nailed on but it could have gone either way.

The appointment of Paul Marsden to referee our Boxing Day game against Lincoln has been greeted with universal dismay. He hasn’t reffed a game above League 2 yet this season and usually operates in the National League. It will be his fourteenth game with us and it’s fair to say he’s earned himself a bit of a reputation. It’s not that we do especially badly when he officiates, it’s just the general air of incompetence on display.

James McClean seems to have lost his Teflon coating at last and has been banned for his latest assault. The only surprise is that the FA have done anything about it. For anyone who hasn’t seen the incident, he kicked an opponent in the head, something the officials failed to spot. Having got away with that at the time, he also delivered a forearm smash to the back of a Swansea player’s neck, right in front of the benches, which sparked an outbreak of handbags between the two sets of coaching staff.

Wednesday is normally TSBW main pod night, but even podcasters need to draw breath sometimes. As a consolation, this week we have the video of the Evening with Antoni Sarcevic held at Fitzpatrick’s in conjunction with the Stockport County Supporters’ Co-Operative.

Today’s tune is The Wedding Present’s version of Elton John’s “Step into Christmas.” A massive improvement on the original:

Thursday, 25^th December 2025.

Happy Christmas to all our readers!

To help the celebrations along, I’d recommend Geordie Hatter’s Festive Fifty. A veritable cornucopia of Christmas tunes:

Here’s my team prediction for tomorrow. All hinges on fitness of course, but I think that lineup would give us a decent chance of victory.

Today’s tune is a tearjerker from GH’s Spotify playlist, “Card From A Multipack” by The Just Joans:

Friday 26^th December 2025.

Matchday, County v Lincoln City, League 1.

Here’s how the team lined up, 9/11 for me, I thought Tayo Edun and Malik Mothersille would start over Owen Dodgson and Nathan Lowe:

I won’t waste too much time trying to analyse the defeat, the TSBW Match Review lads will do that far better than me over the weekend. Suffice to say that we were distinctly second best in the first half, improved significantly in the second but succumbed to a sucker punch of a penalty in injury time. A disappointing afternoon to say the least.

Today’s tune is another of The Geordie Hatter’s choices, “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” by The Ramones:

See you all at Edgeley Park on Monday!

Animo et fide.