I have visited Glanford Park more times than I care to mention, but the first one sticks in my mind, from 20 years ago.

And that’s because giant centre-half, Peter Cawley, came up trumps with one of his rare goals in a 1-1 draw on January 22, 1994 – and what a goal!

I remember interviewing Cawley after that game. He was in great spirits, and didn’t even mind when a Scunthorpe official accidently knocked him off balance in the foyer before the interview had begun.

The official was very apologetic, but Cawley merely joked: “That’s all right mate. I scored today!”

I got the feeling that Cawley was going to remind his team-mates about his quality strike, for the rest of the season, especially his manager Roy McDonough.

Speaking about the game that day, Cawley told me: “It was the best team performance of the year, because it was never going to be an easy game for us.

“Realistically, it feels almost as though we have won, especially after coming from behind.

“But it’s early days to be talking about the play-offs. March is the important month. It’s then that teams have to be in contention.”

Cawley crashed home his unstoppable equaliser in the 67th minute, via a quality free-kick, after lethal marksman Matt Carmichael had broken the deadlock for Iron on 54 minutes.

Home keeper Mark Samways certainly had no chance with Cawley’s 20-yard free-kick, which flew through the wall and into the bottom corner of the net – it was his first goal of the season, and it proved to be his only one.

Cawley was modest about his goal.

He told me: “I don’t score many with my head these days. Roy (McDonough) told me to go into the penalty area for the free-kick, but I stayed back,

“I had no intention of bending it around the wall. I just hit it. Nine times out of 10 it would have been deflected off the wall.

“In the circumstances, I rate it as probably the best goal I have scored. Steve Ball (current Leiston manager, and a member of the U’s Academy coaching staff) made it look better by running over the ball!” added Cawley.

Cawley, then aged 28, only scored nine league goals in his career, eight of them for the U’s. The other was for Southend.

McDonough’s men drifted out of the play-off picture, ending the 1993-94 season in 17th spot in the old Division Three, the fourth tier.