Shaw Lane AFC’s superb FA Cup run has brought in more than £100,000 so far and they have spent some of that this week on fitting new turnstiles and hiring a 500-seater temporary stand to house the Mansfield Town fans in the biggest ever match on Barnsley’s non-league scene. 

The work was done on Wednesday and yesterday at Athersley Rec’s Sheerien Park, where Shaw Lane groundshare, as part of the final preparations for the Ducks’ first round game against the League Two Stags in a 12.30pm kick-off live on BT Sport tomorrow. Shaw Lane have brought in £27,000 in prize money with funds from the television rights, image rights and advertising pushing the winnings into six figures. 

Owner Craig Wood, who has funded the club’s rise from Sunday League football in 2011 to challenging for promotion into the National League North, said: “It’s a massive help and it will help the club develop the ground which is a priority. I have been funding it myself and people don’t realise how much it costs to run a football cub, especially one that is going up the leagues so quickly so you have to adapt the ground. We almost have to get it to the standard of a Football League club.

“The most important aspect is raising the profile of the club and building the fanbase and you can’t get a better way of putting your club on the map than a game like this. There’s no point going into the Conference with 200 fans. It’s live on Saturday lunchtime when people will be watching in pubs and clubs and the non-league world will switch on. Barnsley fans can watch us then go down to Oakwell for their 3pm game. We’ll be done at 2.15pm and it’s only three miles away.”

Mansfield, who play three divisions above the Ducks, hoped to mount a promotion push at the start of the season but are five points off the play-off places in 14th. They failed to win in any of their five league games in October, although the last three were all 1-1 draws. They have won just one of their eight away league matches this season. 

Mansfield manager Steve Evans, the former Leeds and Rotherham boss, has never faced Barnsley FC in his managerial career but will now come up against the town’s second highest-placed club. He will also face a familiar face in former Championship regular David Norris who he managed at both Stamford and Boston United in the late 1990s. 

Evans said: “It’s certainly going to be a test. I still look at non-league football results so I had an idea who they were because they have had four or five promotions. They are a Conference club all day long and they will win their league by seven to ten points. The cameras will be there because they want a shock. “As a minimum we want to go there and get the replay, but we’d like to win.”

There are plenty of ex-Barnsley players in the Stags team. Jacob Mellis, now 26, moved to Field Mill for this season in which he has played 12 matches and scored once. The midfielder made 89 appearances for the Reds, scoring ten goals, between 2011 and 2014.

Mellis said: “I am looking forward to the game because I’ve never played in one like it before. “On the day anyone can win so we need to show them respect. “I looked at some of their results on Google and they are on a good run.”

Paul Digby was extremely highly-rated at Oakwell when he came through the youth system as a central midfielder, making his debut in the Championship at the age of 16 then representing England at under 19 and under 20 level. But he struggled to force his way into the first team on a regular basis and, after a trial with Manchester United, moved to Ipswich Town last year having made 25 appearances for the Reds across five seasons. He was converted into a centre-back by Mick McCarthy but played just 12 games for the Tractor Boys before dropping down two divisions to Mansfield in the summer. Digby has started six League Two matches this season, coming off the bench twice, but has been an unused substitute in the last two. He played 90 minutes in their Tuesday win over Everton under 23s in the Checkatrade Trophy.  

Striker Danny Rose, 23, played 18 matches for his hometown club and scored twice before moving to Bury in 2014. He still lives in Barnsley but joined  Mansfield last year and is having a fine season with eight goals already. Only three players in League Two have scored more than him.

A fourth ex-Barnsley man at Mansfield is Kane Hemmings, 25, who was loaned from Oxford to Mansfield in the summer but failed to net in his first eight matches before striking twice in his last three league games. He scored three goals in 23 League One games for the Reds in the 2014/15 season. Barnsley legend Neil Redfearn and former Doncaster Rovers manager Dean Saunders are scheduled to be the BT Sport pundits for tomorrow’s match.