Team-mates: Mike Lester

We continue our programme feature through speaking to former central midfielder Mike Lester, who was with the club from 1983 to 1986, scoring 12 goals in 125 games.

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.