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Archived News from December 2002

FIRE AT HASLAM`S HOME
24th December 2002 10:22


Fire at home of Stags' chairman
CHAD website
STAGS chairman Keith Haslam has put on a brave face and refused to let a house fire at his Sheffield home spoil his family's Christmas.
The Haslams have been forced to move out of their house following the blaze on Tuesday night, which started after builders left curtains hanging over a light.
Although the fire was mainly confined to the landing, the whole of the upstairs is badly smoke-damaged.
But Mr Haslam told Chad this week: "I am not going to let it spoil Christmas - no one was hurt. Luckily we have a place in Derbyshire we can move into for a month and the builders have accepted responsibility and are making good.
"We have to go through everything and see if it can be cleaned or scrapped. There was nothing irreplaceable."
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Stags' stewards branded 'jobsworths'
CHAD website
THE dad of a young football fan has given Mansfield Town the red card for not letting his son be matchday mascot at Field Mill.
Angry Blackpool fan Tom Jackson says his nine-year-old son Stephen won a competition to be the Seasiders' mascot for the clash with Stags on 14th December.
But when the pair arrived at Field Mill they were stunned to discover the club had no knowledge of Stephen coming with Stags stewards refusing to let him into the ground to get changed into his kit.
This week Mr Jackson branded Mansfield officials as 'jobsworths' and accused them of ruining his son's big day.
And he said: "When my son was chosen you can imagine his reaction Christmas had come early and he talked of nothing else all week.
"But once at Field Mill the ugly face of officialdom took over and trampled all over Stephen's big day."
In the end the distraught youngster was forced to sit with 500-odd other Blackpool supporters instead of leading his heroes out onto the Field Mill pitch.
But this week Stags officials insisted that they did not know Stephen was coming to the game, with commercial manager Bob Gorrill telling Chad: "No one spoke to us from Blackpool about bringing a mascot.
"If they had they would have been told where to report and given an itinerary. It seems they just turned up at the ground and asked a steward where to go.
"If we get any requests to have a mascot, it is no problem for us and we always look after them. I think it looks good when mascots come out with both teams.
"I am surprised the stewards did not direct them to the office, but you would have thought they would have come to the main office anyway. We never saw them."


 

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