Mansfield Town chairman's delight at Field Mill deal

Mansfield Town owner John Radford says completing a deal to buy their Field Mill home is the stepping stone to regaining their Football League status.

Radford has been in talks with former owner Keith Haslam for 18 months and has now secured a 17-year lease on the ground and purchased the freehold.

"I had a couple of targets," Radford told BBC Radio Nottingham.

"I wanted to get Field Mill and I've done that, and now I want to get back into the League."

Had Mansfield not secured a deal on the lease, Football League rules state they would have been ineligible for the play-offs - should they reach them.

Radford, who paid less than £3m for Field Mill, bought the club from Haslam in 2010,.

He added: "This is the start of us getting back up there. Hopefully we can get into the play-offs and have a possibility of getting back into the League.

"It's all gone through now. I have brought all of Field Mill. Keith Haslam had split it into two pockets of land and I have brought both pockets of land.

"It allows the team to train at Field Mill and it allows us to develop the ground and you will see it getting and better each week.

"We will get the training pitches done back up again - that will be the first priority. It will be steady we will tidy things up because.

"When you are renting somewhere you don't have the heart to spend as much cash on it."

Mansfield are sixth in the Blue Square Bet Premier table, one point off the play-off places.

But should they qualify for the four-team knockout end-of-season finale, Football League rules meant their previous lease would not have been sufficient to allow them to take part, or indeed play in the league.

The completed deal brings to an end Haslam's 19-year association with the club.