Mansfield Town manager Nigel Clough has described the club’s annual Christmas visit to King’s Mill Hospital as ‘one of the most enjoyable days of the year’ as Stags visited poorly local children this afternoon.
The gaffer and his squad attended the hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield this afternoon and delivered presents to children, some of whom will sadly spend Christmas away from home this year.
Speaking to iFollow Stags in a pre-Crawley Town press conference today, Nigel said: “It’s one of the most enjoyable days of the year for us to go there.
“It’s not just the patients, the children, [but] it’s the staff as well – to go and see them and in a very small way recognise the work they do throughout the year.
“I can’t think of anything much worse than spending Christmas in hospital if you’re a youngster.”
Stags face Crawley this weekend following 17 days without a game due to an exit from the FA Cup and then a waterlogged pitch last Saturday.
“We came up here to RH Academy and trained on the artificial pitch [on Saturday],” he said.
“The grass pitches were waterlogged as well so it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Only a couple of lads couldn’t train on it – Stephen Quinn with his knee and Stephen McLaughlin we didn’t want to risk.
“Everyone else had a good runaround and it was much needed. We were desperate for a game on Saturday and having had the ten day break which was perfect, it’s now going to be two-and-a-half weeks which is a long time without a game.
“We were desperate to play on Saturday.”
This weekend begins a busy period in the fixture schedule.
“It’s a huge period in terms of once we get Crawley out the way then [we play on the] 23rd, 26th, 29th and 1st, we’ve got twelve points available in nine days.
“At no other time in the season will that happen so although it’s not ultimately defining, it can go a long way to cementing your place in the top six or seven or seeing teams catch up.
“That’s a lot of points in a short space so it would be nice to get a result at Crawley and then we go into the Christmas period in good spirits.”
On the weekend’s opponents, Nigel added: “They’re a side that can be potentially up there and challenging and another one that on their day are as good as anybody, especially at home.
“They’ve got a lot of attacking threats – we know that in the past Scott Lindsey’s teams play good football and can be very dangerous.
“They’re quite expansive and attack-minded so one thing we’re going to have to do is defend well.
“I think it will be quite open, quite similar to the Swindon game but we’re going to have to take our chances which we didn’t in the Swindon game.”
The gaffer provided a fitness update on full-back Stephen McLaughlin ahead of the trip to Broadfield Stadium.
“I think he’ll [McLaughlin] be back in the squad if he comes through training okay,” he said.
