Quote Originally Posted by Elite_Pie View Post
I know the drive home might not be a pleasant one.
1972-1998 we were unbeaten there in the league, 7 matches, I was at three of them - all stood on the Quarry Lane end. We didn't lose a home league game to them in that time either. What changed, as far as I can tell, is that they started taking the fixture far more seriously than we did around 2002 - based on the numbers they brought to Meadow Lane before and after. There was never that many of them in the 1980s, 88/89 season Stags was only our 7th highest gate of the season despite being on a Saturday. It all seemed to change when Dearden was our manager (soon after he'd quit them for us) and they brought a huge following for a very intense and bad tempered 2-2 draw. Since then there's been at least 10k for every ML league clash and we've only beaten them once.