INCREDIBLE DRAMA AT THE ONE CALL STADIUM AS MILLERS TURN ON THE STYLE TO DEFEAT THE STAGS!
It was 6.10pm and Radio Nottingham cut live to the One Call Stadium and spoke to Millers Chairman Mick Garton and Commercial Marketing Director Gary “Boatsy” Clarke. Both were brutally honest admitting pretty much that they expected to lose their Notts Senior Cup Semi Final.
It wasn’t defeatist, but an honest assessment of a season where everything that could go wrong had gone wrong and the reality is that Carlton are second bottom of the league and in a relegation battle, have not won for weeks and were facing a Mansfield Town side who had beaten Notts County 6-1 in the last round and were including a number of first team players in their starting line up.
But something happened that makes this wonderful game what it is, Carlton played like a team who were top of the league, taking the game to the Stags with some cracking passing and link up football. They missed chances, but they stuck to their game plan and Mikey slammed home a penalty again to give the Millers a 1-0 half time lead, after a shot was blocked by a Mansfield players hands in the box.
Mansfield came out with purpose in the second half and a fine turn and shot from Jimmy Knowles saw them pull level. Supporters watched on probably expecting heads to drop as the Millers seemed to have forgot how to win in recent weeks, but the quality of their football was maintained and Carlton carved out the better chances as the game closed out with substitute Brad Wells thwarted by an outstanding save by the young Mansfield keeper.
With the clock running down, Mansfield rallied and Mikey was forced into a fabulous save himself at the death, penalties beckoned.
Once again, the thoughts of negativity must have crossed many minds, this was the season were everything is going wrong and we are not good at penalties and when Kyle Dixon saw his effort saved, one feared the worst, but Mikey saved the next one. What followed was clinical and precise from Lawrence Stewart, Kyle Tomlin and that man Mikey again and then he saved another before Alex Howes who was superb as a substitute on the night scored the final penalty to make it 4-2.
The Carlton Town fans (pictured) who were out in significant numbers and Mini Millers were fantastic on the night singing throughout the night and showing their support for the Joint managers who both looked so flat after Saturday’s defeat to Shildon, but pick themselves up they have and in a game where Carlton were genuinely underdogs this time round, they actually played better than in last years Final and that was right across the team including substitutes.
The Mansfield directors were gracious in defeat and were a credit to their club, but sadly the bar had closed at 10pm, so the supporters had to all go on their separate ways into other establishments to celebrate, another pub close by had also closed earlier so the Chairman was one of those who missed out on an after match drink, but the calls he put into Vice Chairman Barry North and President Roger Smith were special conversations indeed, both who are regulars at away games had been unable to attend , but were delighted at the phone call from Mick and Dave Hodgson who himself was ecstatic after this dramatic and unexpected outcome which sees the Millers into the Final for the second year in a row and into their 7th final in 12 years and Tommy and Mark are still unbeaten in the competition since they took over from Wayne Scott in 2019.
