Council cuts Field Mill capacity

The capacity of Field Mill has been cut again

Mansfield Town have had the capacity of their Field Mill ground reduced by 50 per cent after a mix-up over tickets for Saturday's derby with Chesterfield.

Visiting fans were given 1,900 seats instead of the 1,300 tickets planned.

The safety advisory group for the local authority is still investigating what happened but in the meantime has trimmed the Stags' capacity to 4,684.

Town's average crowd last season was 3,176 - the highest gate being 6,646 in a League Cup tie with Portsmouth.

In a statement explaining their decision, a spokesperson for Nottinghamshire County Council said: "We have decided to reduce the capacity of the whole ground by 50% until the club can restore our confidence in the computerised turnstile monitoring system, which is currently unable to accurately determine the number of supporters coming into the ground.

"The club is also aware of the problems with the turnstile system and shares our concerns.

"Once this problem has been rectified we will raise the capacity back to 70% in line with ongoing improvement measures."

Mansfield's capacity was originally cut in half following trouble at the final match of last season but was then raised to 6,553 before the start of the current campaign following a safety inspection.

The Stags' average home crowd last season was 3,176 - the highest gate being 6,646 in a League Cup tie against Portsmouth.