Stags' League One start beyond a dream - Clough

Nigel Clough was appointed Mansfield boss in November 2020

Manager Nigel Clough says Mansfield Town are living more than a dream as they fly high in League One.

The Stags extended their winning league run to five games when they beat Blackpool to move up to third in the table before the international break.

The last time Mansfield managed such a run of results in the third tier was April 1976, and not since a solitary season in the second tier in 1977-78 have the Stags been higher in the football pyramid.

“It’s good for the older supporters to say the last time we were up there was nearly 50 years ago - it’s great,” Clough told BBC Sport.

"We never dreamed we would have 20 points after nine games, certainly going into a new league."

Mansfield are in their first season back in the third tier after 21 years, having secured automatic promotion from League Two last season.

With the Stags spending only one season at this level in the past three decades, Clough says success will be measured only by survival.

"First and foremost it's about staying in the league - that could be fifth from the bottom or it could be sixth or seventh from top," Clough said.

"Trying to establish ourselves as a League One club is the next stage now, having not stayed at this level for more than 30 years I don't think that is tempering expectations too much."

Clough also admits that the start Mansfield have made, keeping three clean sheets in their past three games as they made it six wins from nine league games this season, "raises expectations".

"We have to deal with that," Clough continued.

"But I don’t think anyone is even taking it seriously that we will maintain it."

In a division that includes eight former Premier League clubs - including Birmingham City and Wigan Athletic, two sides the Stags face in the next 10 days - as well as other fast-rising rivals - Wrexham and Stockport - the 58-year-old does not have to try hard when looking for reasons why maintaining their place near the summit will be difficult.

"Why not dream?" Clough said. "But it has to be tempered by the realisation that hold on a minute, there is Birmingham City, there is Wrexham, and Stockport and Charlton, and do you want me to keep going on and on with the ex-Premier League clubs that are in the league this year?

"When Mansfield were in the Conference [now the National League] Birmingham were in the Premier League, so that's five leagues apart, and now we get to play them, not quite on an even playing field but we are in the same league."

Nigel Clough celebrated Mansfield's win at Crawley in September with the club's travelling supporters

And it is a league in which Clough has already enjoyed one of his most famous achievements in management, having taken Burton to the Championship on a meagre budget.

It was in his second spell at the Brewers that he guided them to the second tier, a level that would have seemed far fetched when he first took charge when they were a non-league club.

When Burton went up from League One, they made it back-to-back promotions having never previously played at the level.

"Momentum can take you a long way," Clough said.

"It's just about continuing in the same vein as we did last season, and the bottom line was the work rate. As good as the football and the goals we scored and everything was, the bottom line was work rate.

"If that stays the same and improves, which I think it has probably gone up, then we have a chance - even in the league above."

And when more than 550 Stags fans made the near 400-mile round trip to Crawley for a Tuesday night game in September, Clough got a clear sense the fans are "enjoying" life back in the third tier when he celebrated the win with them.

"We have been here for nearly four years, and that surprised us," Clough said. "That level of support to go down on a Tuesday night was exceptional and incredible and shows how the supporters have responded," Clough said.

"Everyone is riding the wave and enjoying it, and we should. You don’t know what’s going to happen around the corner, but let's enjoy it while we are there."