BEEFY’S MAN FOR THE IRON Football Rewind

SCUNTHORPE have been in trouble at the bottom of the Football League before.

In March 1980, they were 21st in Division Four – or 89th out of 92 Football League clubs – when they headed to Bournemouth.

Steve Massey and Mick Butler deepened Scunthorpe’s troubles by putting the Cherries 2-0 up in the first half and seven minutes after the break, Iron boss Ron Ashman turned to the England international he had on the bench.

Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan had previously used Scunthorpe as a stepping stone to international honours, but on this occasion Ashman had a current England international on the bench.

An England cricket international, that is.

To get fit for the start of the forthcoming cricket season, Ian Botham (below), with 22 Test caps at the time, trained with the Iron.

Botham had scored a hat-trick for the reserves, earning him a place on the bench for the first team’s trip to Dean Court.

Ashman gave Botham his Football League debut after 52 minutes, with Scunthorpe trailing 2-0.

Botham was put up front in place of Graham Pugh and Cherries skipper John Impey was given the job of marking him.

“He was fit and strong and we were both big lads, so it was a bit of competition,” recalled Impey years later. “I remember him elbowing me and I gave him a couple of tackles from behind. We had a bit of banter – I said, ‘You should stick to cricket’.”

Botham was on for 15 minutes when Massey lashed home a third for Bournemouth – but it wasn’t over.

Stuart Pilling started the Scunthorpe fightback after 72 minutes and reduced the gap with a 45-yard shot that trickled past the unsighted Bournemouth keeper.

Scunthorpe drew level with a third goal, Dave Stewart was the scorer and it remained 3-3 until the final whistle.

Botham went on to play 11 times for Scunthorpe – and possibly his best performance was at Hull on Boxing Day, 1983.

“The match was played in front of a crowd of some 20,000 and I managed to prevent the Hull centre-forward, Billy Whitehurst, from barely having a kick all afternoon,” remembered Botham in his autobiography.

“Then I played the following day against Preston before flying out with the England party for a warm-up match in Fiji two days later.”