Forgotten man Mark Slawson fired Mansfield Town to their first home win since September as the Third Division strugglers saw off Fulham thanks to his splendid 25-yard strike.
The former Notts County winger, deployed as a makeshift centre forward due to the Stags’ lack of fit strikers, hailed his stunning winner as the best goal of his career and showed Andy King that he might be able to solve Mansfield’s goalscoring crisis. The decisive moment came seconds after Slawson, offered an opportunity after impressing in the reserve team last week, was booed for wasting a good shooting opportunity but he more than made up for it by smashing a sensational effort into the top corner of Lee Harrison’s net after being teed up by Stewart Hadley.
That goal – just Mansfield’s fourth in eight matches – gave the hosts a timely lift and the returning Mark Sale might have made the margin of victory more comfortable but he was denied by a combination of Terry Angus and Harrison at the death. Fulham had started the stronger but faded badly in the second half raising more questions about how long Ian Branfoot has left at the helm of London’s oldest professional football club.
The Whites should have been in front early on when John Marshall robbed Warren Hackett of possession and sent Rob Scott scurrying behind the Mansfield defence – only for the striker’s shot to come back off the post. Martin Thomas fired fractionally wide from 20 yards and Nick Cusack saw a shot deflected behind. Mansfield keeper Ian Bowling, playing with a broken finger, then made a brave save to deny Cusack at the start of the second half.
Town were largely restricted to long range efforts in the first period, but John Doolan went close on two occasions before Sale somehow shot wide of the near post in stoppage time after Slawson’s shot had been blocked by Mark Blake.
MANSFIELD TOWN (4-3-3): Bowling; Boothroyd, Hackett, Doolan, Kilcline, Eustace, Sale, Parkin (Sherlock 88), Harper (Onuora 76), Slawson. Subs (not used): Haworth.
GOAL: Slawson (64).
FULHAM (4-4-2): Harrison, Jupp (Barkus 70), Herrera, Angus (Moore 45), Blake; Marshall, Thomas (McAree 74), Morgan, Cusack, Scott, Barber.
REFEREE: Rob Harris (Oxford).
ATTENDANCE: 2,025.
