Craig Priest and Emily Sykes write… Following today’s Capital One’s First Round Cup draw we’re beginning to get a bit antsy here at Mansfield Matters HQ. Personally we will be glad when we’ve seen the back of paperwork and begin to see the heavenly site of a glorious green football pitch. It was rather exciting this morning to see us in a proper competition and not having that fear of drawing the likes of Droylsden, Workington, Matlock etc – no disrespect intended to them but the lure of proper incentive based competition cannot be ignored, Tranmere will pose a good test and whilst some may see it as an anti-climax we see it as a good chance to dip our toes back in the Football League water. The next big event is the release of the fixtures on Wednesday we think the fact we are a Football League Club again will sink in properly then. For now though there is no excitement and in truth it is all a bit boring at the moment, apart from the kit release there has been no real news for us to mull over – on reflection though is this a good thing? This time last year after the heartbreak of the play-off semi-final defeat Paul Cox had pretty much assembled his new squad for the forthcoming season, a move which you can’t deny backfired in the early stages of last season. There was a very busy pre-season schedule which provided plenty of game time for Cox and his management team to cast their eye over the squad, by the end however it still wasn’t clear which set of players were considered the strongest. Looking at this year’s pre-season schedule it is again gruelling with two games in as many days scheduled on more than one occasion – let’s hope that by the end of pre-season there will be a more settled nature regarding team selection, we are sure there will be judging by our transfer activity so far. It does seem like we have signed an overload of midfielders again the difference though is the quality outweighs the quantity, we haven’t signed players for the sake of signing players like last year. Perhaps there is a feeling that we haven’t done enough business yet but we both are happy with the way things are shaping up, as long as a few creases are taken care of in the next week or so aka the future of Matt Green and some news/clarification on the situation of John Dempster and more importantly player/coach Andy Todd – if we are to take our Championship winning ethos then his signature is critical. For now though we will keep playing the waiting game safe in the knowledge that football is creeping ever closer. Before we sign off we’d like to thank those that have signed up to our quiz so far securing this funding is vital should we wish to continue next season. We have put together a fair yet testing set of questions and have some great prizes on offer, click here to find out more. Alternatively should you wish to donate but simply don’t have time to take on the quiz you can do so by clicking here – we appreciate and welcome all donations. The views expressed in this blog are those of the writers and not those of Mansfield Matters or its related organisations. 
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