MANGOTSFIELD United’s strange season ended with a 3-0 play-off semi-final defeat at Sporting Club Inkberrow.
A hectic campaign saw the team play all of their away matches (bar one) first, as the new 3G pitch was laid at their Cossham Street ground.
Then from late November onwards, the Mangos began catching up on all their home games.
The winter months were especially hectic, with two home fixtures every week on Saturdays and Tuesdays becoming the norm.
It resulted in the side playing 24 successive home games in both the league and cups, until they went out of the Wiseman Cup at Westfields on March 18.
What proved to be the club’s final two games of the campaign were spread across the next four weeks.
First came the last outstanding away league fixture at Malmesbury Victoria, which the Mangos needed to win to get back to winning ways after a 5-2 home defeat to Pershore Town and the Wiseman Cup exit.
They did the job, with first-half goals from Lewis Powell (3 and 40) and Joe Porton (36) securing the three points, despite a late consolation goal for the hosts to make it 3-1.
The club had qualified for the play-offs some weeks earlier and, having been second for much of the winter, found themselves slipping to fourth as Roman Glass St George and Sporting Club Inkberrow played their games in hand and moved ahead of them.
There then followed another two-week wait before the play-off semi-final away to in-form Sporting Club Inkberrow, where the Mangos’ dream of promotion back to the Southern League came to an end.
With several key players missing through injury, they found themselves 1-0 down after just four minutes, meaning there was a mountain to climb straight away.
The Mangos chased the game to no avail, and two very late goals from Inkberrow confirmed a deserved 3-0 win for the hosts in the one-leg play-off and a date with Highworth Town in the final.
This was the club’s third season in the Hellenic League and to reach the play-offs in the most unusual of ways, playing almost all the away matches first, was highly commendable.
The team generally performed well, and there were many good results.
The mass of home games from December to February were largely successful, with occasional home defeats, as will often happen in football at any level, but after the most hectic of spells, one will never know how much the recent spell of inactivity in March and April affected the side’s form in the promotion run-in and play-off semi-final.
No doubt the Mangos will bounce back after a summer break, and next season will be a much more “normal” one fixture-wise, so let’s hope that the club can make a big push for promotion once again!
Well done everyone at MUFC, and thank you for your efforts this past season.
Dave Smale