......on the road......

• Journey there? After the coach turned up half an hour late (nothing to do with Allan Thomas' departure, surely?) we finally set off at 4.35pm. A large group made the journey - the nine of us made up about a third of the coach. We occupied the back seats and pitted our wits against magazine quizzes to keep us entertained. We arrived at about 6.55pm.
• The town? We didn't have time to make our own guided tour of the City Ground and Trent Bridge, although we still crossed the River Trent to venture to a local Kebab house. Although it was one chap serving on his own, he couldn't complain after raking in £22.60 in less than ten minutes!
• Pre-match goings on? We ended up rushing back down Meadow Lane and only got into the ground with minutes till kick-off. En route I also managed to get ripped off by a programme seller - £1 for six pages of writing, two of which were on Wrexham (like you get in every programme across the country).
• Ground? Too big. OK, there were only 1,152 people there, but it holds over 20,000 and County don't get half that anyway.
• Admission price? £12 - and £6 concessions. The reductions weren't huge as Mansfield were using someone else's ground.
• Our fans? Despite there only being 100 (if that) we were quite loud in short bursts. Everyone leaving the ground was happier with the result than the performance.
• Their fans? There were only 1,000 of them but they made quite a noise as they were packed together.
• Post-match goings on? Nothing worth noting.
• Journey back? Annoying. It's the journey length where it's not worth going to sleep because it's quite short - but you're tired when you arrive back if you don't get a kip. Decided not to sleep and listened to Radio 5 for the rest of the night's results. Arrived home spot on midnight after having a lift from the football ground off a friend who had just passed his driving test the previous day - congratulations!
  
  DANIEL JENNINGS