Cup Draws Reflect Past Experiences

The draws for the opening round of both the Carabao Cup, and Vertu Trophy, have been made this week, with involvement for all three major Nottinghamshire clubs having involvement.

In the Carabao Cup, both Mansfield Town and Notts County have found themselves drawn away from home, at Chesterfield and Wigan Athletic respectively, in the First Round.

With the games scheduled to played week commencing 11 August, all three clubs from the county were knocked out on penalties in last season’s competition; Nottingham Forest were beaten in the Second Round by eventual winners Newcastle United, whilst Mansfield were beaten by Bolton Wanderers, and Notts County by Shrewsbury Town, in the First Round.

LEAGUE CUP; MID-70s TO EARLY-90s

Going back half a century though, and the mid-1970s, the season of 1975/76 would see the furthest both the Stags, and the Magpies, have progressed in the competition, they reaching the quarter-finals before falling to the eventual finalists.

For Mansfield, it would be the eventual winners which they lost to, dropping a 4-2 result away to Manchester City, having seen off Scunthorpe United (6-0 on aggregate), Wrexham (2-1), Coventry City (2-0), and Wolverhampton Wanderers (1-0), en-route to Maine Road.

In the game against City, who defeated Newcastle 2-1 in the final, Town’s scorers, on 3 December 1975, were both regular scorers in what was a busy season for the club.

Defender Kevin Bird netted ten goals that season, a portion of the sixty-plus he netted in over 450 games for the club, whilst the other came via the prolific, Ray Clarke, who scored 29 in 61 that season; during his two seasons at Mansfield, Clarke bagged an impressive 52 goals in 91 games.

The Stags line-up for the game played in-front of over 30,000 spectators was as follows –

Roy Brown, Sandy Pate, Barry Foster, Ian McDonald, Lawrie Madden, Kevin Bird, Paul Matthews, Terry Eccles, Ray Clarke, Gordon Hodgson, Jim McCaffrey (Ian MacKenzie)

In one of the other quarter-finals, played on the same day, was Notts County away at St. James’ Park, against those other Magpies in Newcastle United, the only goal of the game being an own-goal after thirty minutes.

To reach that stage Notts had seen off Sunderland (2-1), Leeds United (1-0), and Everton (2-0 replay, following a 2-2 draw)

In the latter stages of the seventies, that was the period when the partnership between County, and Les Bradd, was coming to an end; Bradd had joined the Magpies from Rotherham United in 1967, and would go on to spend eleven seasons at Meadow Lane, netting over 120 goals in near 400 games for the club.

In that 1975/76 season, Nottingham Forest was beaten 2-1 in the Third Round, away to Manchester City but, as history will show, the time of the Reds was soon to come when, over the next fifteen years, they’d be six-time finalists.

League Cup winners in 1978 and 1979, against Liverpool (1-0, replay following a goalless draw) and Southampton (3-2), Forest fell at the final hurdle of making it a hat-trick in 1980 when losing 1-0 to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

A decade later and the Reds were at it again, back-to-back winners in 1989 and 1990, against Luton Town (3-1) and Oldham Athletic (1-0), before losing the 1992 final, 1-0, against Manchester United.

LEAGUE TROPHY; LATE-80s

Moving on to the Vertu (EFL League) Trophy and the draw has also been made for the opening group stage of the upcoming season’s competition, with Forest, County, and the Stags involved.

Nottingham Forest U21s were drawn in Group B alongside Barrow, Blackpool, and Tranmere Rovers; Notts County are in Group D with Barnsley, Lincoln City, and Manchester United U21s; whilst Mansfield are in Group F together with Harrogate Town, Huddersfield Town, and a side they vanquished 3-0 last season, Newcastle United U21s (Stephen Quinn 2, Lucas Akins).

Of the Nottinghamshire clubs to have competed in the competition, only Mansfield Town have made the final, once, winning the trophy back in 1987, on penalties, following a 1-1 draw with Bristol City.

Not only was this the first ever final decided on penalties, but it is also Mansfield’s only, major honour, it then being known as the Associate Members’ Trophy, with Kevin Kent netting for the Stags just before the hour mark (Glyn Riley equalised with minutes left on the clock).

The Stags’ line-up for the cup final victory was as follows –

Kevin Hitchcock, Mike Graham, Paul Garner, Tony Lowery, George Foster, Tony Kenworthy, Kevin Kent, Jason Danskin, Mark Kearney, Neil Whatmore, Keith Cassells (subs Gary Pollard, Ian Stringfellow)

Of the thirteen players who helped lift the cup, substitute Stringfellow was only Notts-born player in the squad, born in Nottingham in the late 1960s and beginning his career with the Stags in the mid-eighties, making over 160 appearances before departing in 1994.

To the present day though, and all three local clubs will be looking to better last season’s showings, with all three exiting in the group stage, all three finishing in third of four.