Speaking to the club website after scoring in the 2-0 victory against Leyton Orient, Ollie Clarke said: “We had our Christmas do in November and since then I think we’ve won every game [in the league]”
Christmas parties have been the focus of mainly negative media in recent times, so it is nice to see them being credited with something good after Clarke said that the togetherness that the Mansfield Town Christmas party brought to the side has resulted in their upturn in form.
He said: “It’s brought everyone closer together. I think the lads are really fighting for each other and digging in deep. That’s what we want to see.”
Mansfield Town have gone on an unbelievable winning run in League Two, their last loss coming back on November 23 against Sutton United.
Since then, The Stags have won eight consecutive league games against: Crawley Town, Carlisle, Salford City, Hartlepool, Swindon Town, Walsall, Barrow, and Leyton Orient.
The Barrow victory was perhaps the most impressive of them all after they played with 10 men for more than 50 minutes and won 3-1 away from home.
Ollie Clarke added: “We knew we had it within ourselves to go on a good run.
“Obviously to set a record of eight consecutive wins is massive and long may that continue for us.
We’ve got to just keep ticking games off as they come. We’re not looking any further ahead than Harrogate on Tuesday night and that’s when the hard work starts again.”
The Stags’ winning run has seen them go from looking over their shoulder and fearing relegation to fighting for promotion.
Before this run, Mansfield were 18th in the table having played 18 games, sitting just seven points off the bottom and 12 points off the automatic promotion places.
Now, miraculously, they find themselves 6th, 25 points off the foot of the table and just three points off automatic promotion.
Mansfield’s previous football league record winning run was a run of seven victories in the 1991/1992 season.
Mansfield actually hold the winning run record for the national league/conference with 12 in a row in 2013.
Mansfield started off the season with two wins from two in the league before going on a 14 game winless run in all competitions, which ended at home to Tranmere on 30 October.
They then won four games in all competitions before the loss to Sutton and then the subsequent winning run.
Notable performers on the winning run include Stephen McLaughlin who got an assist at the weekend, Stephen Quinn who assisted twice in the hard fought victory against Barrow and Jordan Bowery who has four goals in his last five games.
Mansfield’s strength from set-pieces have been a major factor in their form, four of their last five goals came from corners or free kicks.
The Stags are looking to extend this amazing run even further when they visit mid-table Harrogate Town tonight.
