Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray is calling on the people of the town to come and support his team after their strong start to the season.
The Stags currently sit just two points off the automatic promotion spots in fourth position in the Sky Bet League Two table, and Murray says the time is now to come and back his side.
After the seeing over 4,000 fans come through the gates for the first time this season in last week’s defeat to Bristol Rovers, Murray wants to keep increasing the attendance as the season progresses.
“We want the town to get behind us now. I don’t think there’ll be a better time than now for the town to jump on board and let’s have a right crack at this.
"It’s one of them where you say: ‘shall we be cautious and keep our feet on the ground?’ because I understand that we haven’t done anything yet, but as soon as the bad times come then everyone mopes in it, so let’s enjoy it.
“Let’s get carried away, let’s jump two-footed into the moment, let’s go with the motion. I’m enjoying it, the team’s enjoying it, the fans are enjoying it, we’re playing some great football and let’s just go for it.
“We’ve got nothing to lose, we’re a football club on the up and everything’s moving forward.”
Murray’s side have picked up 25 points from their opening 14 League Two fixtures and he says the club is moving in the right direction, both on and off the field.
“The football club, from an internal point of view, is doing everything it can. The off-the-field stuff, the bars, the new rooms that are being opened, the chairman can’t do anymore at the minute.
“I said to the chairman: I don’t want this to be a one-off, let’s progress. Everybody says on the first day of the season: ‘I want to get promoted’ and everyone says ‘I would love my football club to be in the
Championship, in the Premier League, in the Champions League’- well let’s do it.
“We can’t do it on our own, we can’t do it with 2000 people, we need everybody in the town behind us. The chairman will back it and he’ll give it everything it needs but he needs help, the same as the boys need help. We need the backing and support to push this forward and I want this to be a successful period of time.
“I’ve never settled for average. I’ve got five or six promotions on my CV as a player and as a manager, I want more.”
Looking forward to the 400-mile round trip to Portsmouth this Saturday, the boss believes it will be another tough test for his side, but one they can emerge victorious from.
“I’m looking forward to Saturday, we go into it sitting in a good place in the league and on the back of some real good form.
“The boys are confident and we’re going to go there and not admire Portsmouth, but we’ll have ultimate respect because, for me, Cooky’s (Paul Cook, Portsmouth manager) the best manager in the league. His teams are a template of how it should be done.
“It’s a great place to go and we go there with a momentum and a focus where we believe we can go and get something out [of] the game. We know that the pressure is on them to win, their home form has been a little bit patchy and there will be some tension in the ground.”
To see more of Murray’s news conference, go to Stags Player later on today.
