Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2012 9:01:54 GMT
I passed through Mansfield on the train yesterday having had little previous awareness of the Robin Hood Line which reopened in the 1990s. In my day you couldn't get to Mansfield by train. Instead you took the bus from either Chesterfield or Nottingham.
Or even Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway on the line between Nottingham and Chesterfield. Handy for Alfreton; less so for Mansfield. Indeed I once heard a tale, possibly apocryphal, about rampaging Sheffield United supporters arriving to "smash up the town" - in time-honoured fashion - and then being unable to even find the town of Mansfield.
Anyway, when we started this thread a few months ago, I quite forgot to tell Wildebeeste about the weekends I spent in Mansfield in the early 1980s. I'd just completed a one-year course near London and, at the finish, people found jobs all over the country. I spent a while in Swansea before moving to Preston. Two of my friends found jobs in Mansfield; another over the border in Derbyshire. They shared a house in Mansfield. I'm sure there was a party or two and I grew to appreciate Mansfield if not actually love it.
Then people moved on just leaving one friend who - if I remember this correctly - lived for a time in a Guinness Trust property somewhere near Warsop. I remember going there a couple of times and visiting Clumber Park and the old mining museum near Ollerton. I must have been there over the weekend of 15/16 October 1983 for I have a programme for our 3-1 win at Field Mill that Saturday: Sheridan (2); Cooper (1) with the misspelt Dave "Cauldwell" playing for the home team. I wonder what Stan Searl said about that in the Chad?
My friend, from one of Leeds' posher suburbs, soon left the area herself after an improbable two or three years in Mansfield. She effortlessly became Surrey Woman working in Woking and Guildford, marrying and living in a rather nice house on the Surrey-Hampshire border. To the best of my knowledge she never set foot inside Field Mill.
Or even Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway on the line between Nottingham and Chesterfield. Handy for Alfreton; less so for Mansfield. Indeed I once heard a tale, possibly apocryphal, about rampaging Sheffield United supporters arriving to "smash up the town" - in time-honoured fashion - and then being unable to even find the town of Mansfield.
Anyway, when we started this thread a few months ago, I quite forgot to tell Wildebeeste about the weekends I spent in Mansfield in the early 1980s. I'd just completed a one-year course near London and, at the finish, people found jobs all over the country. I spent a while in Swansea before moving to Preston. Two of my friends found jobs in Mansfield; another over the border in Derbyshire. They shared a house in Mansfield. I'm sure there was a party or two and I grew to appreciate Mansfield if not actually love it.
Then people moved on just leaving one friend who - if I remember this correctly - lived for a time in a Guinness Trust property somewhere near Warsop. I remember going there a couple of times and visiting Clumber Park and the old mining museum near Ollerton. I must have been there over the weekend of 15/16 October 1983 for I have a programme for our 3-1 win at Field Mill that Saturday: Sheridan (2); Cooper (1) with the misspelt Dave "Cauldwell" playing for the home team. I wonder what Stan Searl said about that in the Chad?
My friend, from one of Leeds' posher suburbs, soon left the area herself after an improbable two or three years in Mansfield. She effortlessly became Surrey Woman working in Woking and Guildford, marrying and living in a rather nice house on the Surrey-Hampshire border. To the best of my knowledge she never set foot inside Field Mill.
