Adam Smith first signing for Stags
Adam Smith is the first through the door this summer as Holdsworth adds a pacey winger to the squad. He turned down a deal at York to sign a 1 year deal at Field Mill.
Smith started off his life as a professional footballer at Chesterfield and made 65 appearances over 8 years. Most of the time he was played on the left wing despite being primarily right footed. He then moved on loan to Lincoln where he only made 4 appearances, at the end of the season he was released by Chesterfield. That summer he had trials and Darlington and Wrexham but had to settle for a deal at Gainsborough Trinity in the BSN.
In November 2008 Smith moved to York City on loan and made quite an impact scoring 2 goals in 7 games. York tried to sign him permanently but Gainsborough were holding out for a fee. Eventually York managed to negotiate a deal and Smith joined the club on a 18 month deal. All in all Smith made a total of 44 appearances for York scoring 4 goals. Despite York offering him a new deal he turned it down and signed a 1 year deal with us.
“This club is going the right way. There is clear ambition here and the manager is determined to put the club back in the Football League” - Adam Smith on joining the Stags
I’ve seen Smith play a fair bit over the last few years and my first impression when I heard he had signed was not very positive to say the least. But after listening to his interview he seems real keen to have a good go at it here, which is something I like in a player. Smith is somebody who will bring real pace to the squad which is something we are crying out for in the wide areas because (as much as I love the lad), Williams seems to have lost a yard or three over the last few months.
Smith says he likes to play on either wing or upfront and can use either foot, although his is mainly right footed I think. Fingers crossed he can pull it off for us or bring the best out in Briscoe. If one of them manage to get on form next season they will be a major part of our attack.
That’s not the only news that has come out today though! As I put in my last blog Westlife were rumoured to being playing a Gig at Field Mill. Well it’s not a rumour anymore. It’s all confirmed and on the 21st of August Westlife will be at Field Mill. There are 14,999 (strange number eh?) tickets up for grabs, priced from £36 all the way up to £45. Much more information on that can be found here. A simple bit of maths (15,000 x £36) tells me that at least £540,000 will be raised if we sell all the tickets. Even 10% of that will be massive in our push to get back into the Football League. 54k will be able to get you 2 or 3 quality players in this league. A massive well done to the board in securing this! 
Time to finish off with some more rumours then. Lets start with a new left back shall we? We are apparently chasing Paul Stonehouse from Forest Green Rovers. I can’t remember much about him apart from that he is rather quick. The FGR fans seem to think highly of him though and I’ve been told it’s not the first time we have tried to sign him either. Now the next one I’m not too sure how much truth is in this but a Barrow fan has told me that we have offered a deal to Andy Bond. Since then I’ve found this article, which says he is being chased by Football League clubs but has been offered deals by 3 or 4 clubs in the BSP. With him attracting Championship clubs though I can’t see us pulling it off!
The last one and the one that comes around every summer is Luke Beckett. He’s left Gainsborough because they have had to chop the wage bill down a bit and Beckett wants to get back into full time football. His name was mentioned on the forum the other day but nothing really came of it but today Holdsworth has said this.
“Luke is a good player and a goalscorer, but it all comes down to financial demands.” David Holdsworth – This is Mansfield Town.co.uk
He’s getting on a bit now and will be 34 in the November but his Wikipedia says he has scored 16 goals in 20 games which is pretty good going! Normally when Holdsworth says something like this it means he wants him and he normally gets his man too. A striker would have to leave though because we have 4 already. My money would be on Kyle Perry. He wouldn’t get rid of Speight, Duffy was our second top scorer and he hasn’t really given Shaw a chance yet. Perry has played the majority of the season and has gradually got worse. He was great at the start but towards the end of the season he went down under every challenge and didn’t really score enough goals.
Last but not least Jake Speight has been offered a new and improved deal. I’m pretty confident he will sign it and fire us up the table next season!
