Mansfield Town's youth team obtained maximum points yesterday afternoon, beating local rivals Chesterfield 3-1 in the Football League Youth Alliance.
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A decent crowd of 92 turned out in the midday sun at Kirklington Road, to watch yesertday's lunchtime local derby between the Stags' youth team and their traditional club rivals from over the M1, Chesterfield.
Prior to today's encounter, the highly rated Spireites youngsters were tipped as being a stern test for the current crop of promising Mansfield talent and a barometer to gauge whereabouts John Dempster's charges are on the development scale at this current moment in time.
Ultimately, the Stags thoroughly deserved their victory, as they imposed their game-plan upon the Derbyshire club, with an impressive high tempo performance in strength-sapping conditions as Rainworth's Kirklington Road experienced a mini heat wave.
The Stags showed their teeth from the first whistle when Teddy Bloor forced Chesterfield into conceding a corner in the very first minute with a dangerous looking cross from out on the right wing.
With just six minutes on the clock, the home side were ahead, when Devante Reittie caused the Spireites' defence to panic and having blocked the lively Mansfield forward's initial shot, Luke Randle lobbed the ball over his own keeper Dylan Parkin in a vainglorious attempt to clear his lines.
Stags' enjoy good periods of possession early on, with both Bloor and Tyler Blake making some serious inroads into the Chesterfield half.
But the visitors began to find their feet and mounted several attacks of their own.
Randle and Derek Daley combined well, but the latter's speculative shot skimmed wide of Sam Wilson's left hand post, while George Milner's right wing cross needed Corbin Shires to hook the ball away for a corner, with Ricardo German loitering in the Stags area with intent.
Sure enough, the inevitable Spireites' equaliser came on 25 minutes, when Martell Daswell took a through ball from Milner in his stride and cracked home the levelling goal on 25 minutes.
Boosted by their goal, Chesterfield upped the tempo and within two minutes of scoring came close again, when Tom Jarrard headed over from Daley's left wing corner.
The game ebbed and flowed one way and then the other and Ellis Ogle was unlucky to see his opportunist volley from outside the area crash off of the cross bar with Parkin well beaten.
Parkin's poor clearance fell straight into the path of Drew Gibson, but the visitors' keeper made amends for his casual kicking by getting down well to his left to block Gibson's stinging drive.
German battled his way into the Mansfield area but Morgan Ratcliffe had the strength to stave the threat posed by the Chesterfield centre forward and blocked his route to goal while Sam Wilson came bravely off his line to claim the ball, with Kane Baldwin on hand to cover his keeper's back.
Cain Smith had been a thorn in the visitors' side with a range of telling passes and free kicks into the final third, but Parkin hadn't let his errant kicking trouble him unduly and was dealing with almost everything the Stags could throw at him.
Right on the stroke of halftime Parkin held onto the ball well as it moved about in the air from Louis Danquah's free kick.
HT: Stags Youth 1-1 Spireites Youth
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The Stags started the second half, pretty much as they had the first, forcing a corner straight from the restart.
Bloor's inswinging flag kick was only half  cleared and  as the Spireites struggled to deal with getting the ball away, it dropped invitingly to Devante Reittie twenty yards out, who leapt and unleashed an unstoppable drive past Parkin, to put the home side back in front.
Bloor's right wing cross was headed back out to him by Shires and the Stags right back drilled a shot-cum-cross across the face of the goal, that Parkin just about managed to stop Gibson from turning over the line.
Ogle and Reittie passed their way into the box through the Spireites back line, but the latter's shot from 12 yards was deflected wide at the expense of a corner.
There was no let up from the young Stags at this point and Parkin had to be alert to keep out Ratcliffe's downwards header from yet another Bloor delivery.
The Stags' right back cued up another chance from the resultant corner and Baldwin headed narrowly wide of the upright.
The second half belonged to Mansfield, but it is the mark of a good goalkeeper when they keep their concentration when they aren't seeing much of the ball and Wilson was duly switched on when Chesterfield launched a rare attack and Daley tried his luck from a free kick 25 yards out.
Reittie dispossessed the Spireites' captain Brad Holmes and unselfishly played the ball sideways to Tyler Blake, who couldn't keep his shot down and the visitors defence were afforded some breathing space as the ball cleared the crossbar.
Daley ventured forward for Chesterfield, but was forced into rushing his shot, which Baldwin intercepted and cleared round the post to safety. Daley whipped the ball into the six yard box from the corner and although Wilson only caught sight of the ball at the very last moment, he held onto it well.
Chesterfield needlessly squandered possession in their own half which allowed Cain Smith to gratefully take advantage of a gifted opportunity, but his effort flew just wide of Parkin's upright as the visitors' keeper berated his lackadaisical back four.
But they didn't heed his words and on 75 minutes when Danquah intercepted another poor pass between two Spireite defenders, charged forward and rolled the ball past the exposed Parkin to give the home side a two goal cushion.
The visitors resorted to pumping hopeful balls into the Stags area, but the assured Wilson wasn't unduly troubled and he confidently handled them.
Tom Marriott entered the fray for the last ten minutes and was evidently keen to impress.
Blake took the ball down centrally and played Marriott in through the left channel, but the diminutive Stags substitute went to ground under a heavy challenge as he cued up an angled shot.
Having had his corner half cleared back out to him, Marriott was fouled out on the left wing. He took the free kick himself and dropped the ball invitingly to Corbin Shires, but as he powered his header towards the Chesterfield goal, Tom Jarrard was on hand and his last ditch interception diverted the ball wide of the post, as our youngsters went on to record an impressive win.
Mansfield Town (1) 3
Luke Randle OG 6, Devante Reittie 50, Louis Danquah 76
Chesterfield (1) 1
Martell Daswell 25
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Mansfield Town:
Sam Wilson, Teddy Bloor, Louis Danquah (C), Morgan Ratcliffe, Corbin Shires, Kane Baldwin, Cain Smith Cameron Healey 65), Drew Gibson, Tyler Blake, Devante Reittie (Zane Hakeem 71), Ellis Ogle (Tom Marriott 80)
Unused subs - Keiran Harrison, Luke Bacon
Chesterfield:
Dylan Parkin, Jake Hudson, Luke Randle, Ryles Ovenden, Tom Jarrard, Brad Holmes (C), Joe Rowley, Martell Daswell, Ricardo German, George Milner, Derek Daley
Subs - Jack Brownhill, Ellis Spencer, Owen Darwent, Dan Thistlewaite, George Lynham
Both games kick off at 11am.
