Port Vale play-off hero Mal Benning a pioneer for British South Asians in football, says Jobi McAnuff

Mal Benning is a pioneer for British South Asians in football, according to Jobi McAnuff.

In front of the Port Vale fans at Wembley, he scored his first goal for the club to seal promotion to League One.

Danny Batth was part of the team that earned promotion back to the Sky Bet Championship after a 2-0 win against Wycombe in the League One play-off final.

In the build-up to Port Vale's clash with Mansfield, he told Sky Sports that he was proud to represent British South Asian players, particularly Indians and Sikhs, on the pitch at the home of English football.

McAnuff, who was appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Football Association this week, told Sky Sports: "We talk about representation a lot, and certainly, it's a portion of society that we don't."

He has been a pioneer and someone who has been flying the flag for a long time. It is great to see him get his day, and against his former club, he pops up with the goal.

Both full-backs were key to the game, but big, big credit to him. He had to be prepared. He hasn't been playing a lot recently, but he's come back into the team, and it's a big credit to Mal.

Benning: Massive step for South Asians in The Game

Mal Benning is a defender for Port Vale.

The main thing is that we won. I was happy to get the third goal and kill the game off. I thought I had scored at Wembley when I saw it go into the back of the net.

I talked about South Asians in football on Sky Sports News earlier in the week and that was a huge step. For the Sikh community as well as South Asians in football, that was a huge step.

How Port Vale beat Mansfield

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There are many sliding doors in these finals, and this one came so early for Mansfield. After just nine minutes, Jamie Murphy was presented with a glorious opportunity to give his side the lead after James Gibbons had misread a cross, but he was denied from close range.

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Harratt was able to give Vale the lead. After hitting the post with a rasping drive from 20 yards, he found the goal on 20 minutes as he latched onto Mal Benning's cross and headed into the bottom corner.

It was 2-0 four minutes later as Ben Garrity missed the bar on the cross from the right, but the ball dropped kindly for Wilson to head in.

The situation went from bad to worse. The side with 10 men was left with a second yellow for a rash lunge on Wilson.

Post-match stats

• For the fourth time in four attempts, Mansfield failed to win promotion via the play-offs (1995, 2004, 2019 and 2022). This was the second time they’ve reached the final and failed to win, having previously lost in a penalty shootout against Huddersfield in 2004.
• Port Vale have now won promotion in two of their three play-off appearances, however this was their first triumph since the 1988-89 season while in the third tier. They are the first team to win promotion via the League Two play-offs after finishing fifth since 2014-15 (Southend).
• Mansfield failed to win all three of their games against Port Vale in 2021-22 (D1 L2), with the Valiants being one of only three teams to beat Mansfield on multiple occasions this term (also Harrogate and Sutton).

There was a chance for the Stags to get back into it just before the break as a free-kick was spilled by Stone and landed in the path of Rhys Oates, but his shot was hooked off the line byConnor Hall to keep Vale's advantage.

There would be no comeback for the Stags, as Benning volleyed home brilliantly from Worrall's cross to seal the game for Vale.

South Asians are in football.

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