“Stand Up for the 96” will echo round Mansfield’s 7,760 seat stadium today – but the names of every victim of the Hillsborough Disaster of 23 years ago will have their own seat in the stands.
For Mansfield’s operations director Paul Broughton, 47, is a lifelong Liverpool fan and when he met ‘Supersub’ David Fairclough at the tiny Nottinghamshire stadium he made a suggestion to mark the memory of those who died more than 23 years ago at that fateful FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield.
And within minutes legendary Liverpool goal scorer Fairclough (pictured) had called Margaret Aspinall – chair of the Hillsborough Families Support Group – to check that the well-meant Mansfield idea would be approved by the relatives of the victims.
Fairclough, who was at the stadium as an ambassador for FA Cup betting partner William Hill, said: “Margaret was very happy with the request and very appreciative of the gesture. It is very fitting and they will never be forgotten.”
Talented Fairclough played his last ever league game on Mansfield’s Field Mill pitch and it’s far from a happy memory and combining the ground with the FA Cup makes his misery even greater.
The three-times European Cup winner, six times First Division champion and three times League Cup victor has only one major domestic trophy missing from his CV and that’s the FA Cup.
That his beloved Liverpool should head to Mansfield in the third round of the FA Cup doesn’t bring back any happy memories at all for the Reds’ striker who scored 55 goals in his 153 appearances for the club.
For ‘Supersub’ Fairclough was clattered continually in his final league game by Mansfield’s centre half George Foster and before that in the 1977 season when all-conquering Liverpool were chasing the treble it was Manchester United who denied him a winners medal in the FA Cup final.
Fairclough, 54 yesterday, is awaiting an operation on his ankle in March from the kickings he took in his playing days and having recovered from another spell under the surgeon’s knife for repair work on three injured toes.
Shaking his head as he recalls that last league game at Field Mill, now renamed the One Call Stadium, David said: “The Old Field Mill wasn’t that brilliant as I remember it.
“I was playing for Wigan in Division Three and the Mansfield centre half George Foster kicked me up the backside from the start.
“And we either lost 1-0 or drew – I know for sure we didn’t win.