Muggleton Article

Last updated : 22 August 2006 By Editor
Nottingham Evening Post: Monday 21st August 2006


In a career spanning 15 clubs over 20 years, Carl Muggleton has encountered just about every managerial type imaginable.

From bawlers to philosophers, he's seen it all.

Now in his third spell at Mansfield, the 37-year-old goalkeeper is working under a manager who is the epitome of contradiction.

While Peter Shirtliff cuts an unemotional character on the sidelines, his exciting Mansfield side play with a youthful exuberance and abandon that has inspired Muggleton to roll back the years.

He was responsible for two age-defying saves at Grimsby on Friday night that earned a point at last year's play-off finalists - but it is the players in front of him that are catching the eye.

They could not be more in contrast to Shirtliff, who in post- match interviews resembles a poker player more than a football manager.

Yet his side continues to play in a swashbuckling manner that perhaps reveals more about Shirtliff than he ever would himself.

Muggleton attempted to lift the lid on the manager who has made an impression on him since he returned to Field Mill this summer.

"It takes all sorts of managers," he said. "You've got your Martin O'Neills of the world - flying all over the place - and the Sven Goran Erikssons doing nothing and just saying things in the dressing room.

"Peter has a happy medium - if something needs saying, it is said. When people need to be told what to do, it's done, and when they need encouraging he does that too.

"He's a genuinely nice fellow. He's very organised. Everything is done professionally and I think that comes out on the pitch. As long as everything is right off the pitch, things go well on it."

At Blundell Park, Shirtliff again showed his commitment to attacking football as Mansfield produced a fearless display against a Grimsby side that came so close to promotion last season.

Though the Mariners have endured a difficult start to the campaign with two defeats from their first three games, Graham Rodger's side still presented an early gauge of Mansfield's own promotion credentials.

The penetration of wide men Matt Hamshaw and Michael Boulding suggests they will be able to cut open the majority of League Two defences this season but Shirtliff's concern was the fact that they are yet to keep a clean sheet.

If they are to challenge for the play-offs he feels they must start killing games off when in a winning position.

He blamed the lapse in concentration that allowed Peter Bore to head home an unchallenged 71-minute equaliser for the loss of two points on Friday. But in truth it was the profligacy at the other end that denied Mansfield their first away win of the campaign.

Indeed, such was the wastefulness in front of goal that Mansfield were left indebted to Muggleton for outstanding saves in each half to help secure the point.

Not that the veteran keeper was grateful for the action.

He said: "It was nice to make a few saves, but when you get to my age you don't want to do anything - but when you're called upon you make a save. It's difficult when you're knocking on, but as long as you feel like you can contribute then you've got to carry on."