Following his football career, he turned to coaching and ran his own soccer schools as well as managing non-league sides.
BEST MATE...
It probably comes from when I first started at the club to be honest, but Dennis Leman. I was at Manchester City with Dennis, so went a long way back. I knew Dennis coming into Scunthorpe and he was already one of my best mates at City. We had a great set of lads in the dressing room though.
BEST TRAINER…
‘Points’ (Neil Pointon) by a mile. He couldn’t get enough football and he was a really good lad. I spoke to him not long ago actually.
LEADER…
The leader would probably have been, by example, John Green. I had a spell as captain of the side, but John signed from Rotherham United and had some injury problems of his own. His attitude and desire to win made him a good leader by example.
MOST SKILFUL…
After me? It’s a fact, I would say it was me. That was my game. To be fair, we had a lot of skilful players, so if it wasn’t me, I’d go for ‘Brolls’ (Mike Brolly). He was a good player and another lad I’d played alongside before, for Grimsby Town when we won promotion.
MOST INTELLIGENT…
‘Brolls’ (Mike Brolly) was a teacher, so he was up there but the most intelligent player was Alan Whitehead – a centre-half. He was a bright, astute man. He knew what was what, how to approach things and may even have gone into teaching as well.
JOKER…
Neenan! Joe Neenan! Crackpot. He was just a generally funny man. I don’t think he ever took anything seriously.
UNSUNG HERO…
I would probably say Tommy Graham. He was always at least a 7/10 in every game and was a reliable player. He was my central midfield partner for a while and always did the job. He was really consistent. I played with Tommy at Barnsley as well, so it’d definitely be him. We were different sorts of players. I wanted to get on the ball, he worked hard and got forward but we complemented each other.
QUICKEST…
That was probably Julian Broddle. He’s the only player I can think of.
BEST TEAM…
The season we won promotion – for obvious reasons. I enjoyed my time at the club on the whole, we went through a few dodgy spells and I did experience a relegation too. We had a good side the year we went up, but just didn’t kick on. We had plenty of goals in us, with ‘Cammy” (Steve Cammack) in the side. It’s crazy I played the most games of my career in Scunthorpe, but I really enjoyed my time there. I was fortunate to play alongside a lot of good players in my career, in a lot of good sides, and be a part of six promotion-winning teams – that Scunthorpe side being one of them.
