I went to Ilkeston that day to see for myself what was going on there.
Might well have gone anyway, I’ve gone further for Iron friendlies.
I also wanted to see a genuine 4G pitch which to be fair was the second most impressive thing I saw that day.
Played much closer to a proper pitch than some of the plastic abominations at the likes of Tamworth and Scarborough.
I did pay for my burger but full disclosure Patrick did buy me a pint.
The most impressive part was we were held up going in because there were a mass of kids in there being coached and playing small sided games. Didn’t count them but there must have been 100 or so boys and girls. Not an academy hoping to unearth a gem for the first team, just kids having fun and getting excited about football and being organised by coaches that seemed to know what they were doing.
There is much talk at Scunthorpe about being a community club, for me this is kind of what a community club would look like.
I have no idea if this was anything to do with Hilton or not but whoever organised and supported this kind of stuff deserves a lot of praise.
We did meet Hilton and he was talkative and friendly but mainly concerned with his reputation on social media. Shook his hand but did have an urge to count my fingers afterwards.
This was about the time dark stories were starting to do the rounds but I only read about them second hand on here as I don’t do commercial social media.
