Team-mates: Stuart Pilling

We continue going back through past programme articles with legendary Iron figures by talking to Stuart Pilling. Now living in Bolton, the predominantly left-sided utility man took time to reflect on his nine-year stay at the club.

BEST MATE…
My best mate would be Nolan Keeley. We both signed for the club in 1973 with myself coming from Hull City and Nolan from Great Yarmouth. We had many a good time in The Poacher – after matches of course!

BEST TRAINER…
The best for me was Richard Money. He was only a young player at 18-years-old when he joined from Lowestoft but he loved football. He would leave the club four years later to go to Fulham and he then moved to Liverpool.

LEADER…
The leader was Ken Houghton – the veteran always on the ball. He joined the same summer I did, but only remained at the club for that one campaign.

MOST SKILFUL…
Angus Davidson was such a great player. He loved intensifying the opposition and made a lot of appearances for the club, and scored a lot of goals too.

MOST INTELLIGENT…
The most intelligent player we had was Don Welbourne. If you had a question, you’d go to him and he would answer it. Don came through the ranks at Scunthorpe and had been there for about seven years when I arrived at the club. He went on to Appleby-Frodingham afterwards but he’s the stand-out most intelligent player during my time at the club. Alan Boxall was also intelligent.

LEAST INTELLIGENT…
The least intelligent was Joe Neenan. Well, he was a goalkeeper after all!

JOKER…
The joker was Graham Collier. He was always first out of the bath and our socks always went missing. Where were they? In our pockets!

BEST PLAYER…
The overall best player was Vinnie Grimes. He came from Hull City and did not give the ball away.

WORST TRAINER…
The worst trainer was John Peacock. He came through the juniors to the first team and would obviously have a successful career with Derby County and the England Under-17s. Back when he was playing, he hated losing five-a-side games and having to run around the track as a consequence.

QUICKEST…
The quickest was myself! I left most defenders on their backside!

BEST TEAM…
The best team I played in was in 1973-74 when we drew with Millwall in the FA Cup. We had already beaten Darlington in Round One and also got through a replay in Round Two against Mansfield before we were drawn against the Lions in Round Three. Graham Collier netted in the 1-1 draw away from home and I scored after 12 seconds in the replay. We won 1-0 at the Old Show Ground. Next up was Newcastle United at St James’ Park and we managed to get a 1-1 draw in front of 50,000 people, bringing the tie back to the Old Show Ground. In the end we lost 3-0 in front of 20,000 but it was a great experience.