“Great lad who came from nowhere who had a huge heart and great attitude. We used to call him Ug”.

Grimsby folk might not welcome the reference to “nowhere,” but David Peach’s depiction of Ian Turner otherwise rings true. Up until May 1^st 1976, Ian Turner’s goalkeeping career could fairly be classed run-of-the-mill, but his bravery and temperament on that Wembley afternoon – as he recovered from a shaky start in which the shots were, as he puts it, “bouncing of my head and everything” – forever enshrined his name in the history books of the club, not to mention impressing his mother who was at her first football match. In the first match of the next season, Ian injured his left knee and needed a cartilage-operation. Goalkeepers were borrowed and eventually, Peter Wells was signed.

Ian started the next season, 1977-78, in the first team, but the season belonged to Wells. Following a Florida summer, Ian, still not 30, was on the non-league circuit.

The cartilage problems had not helped but goalkeepers don’t habitually quit League football at 28. So was this another case of reaching the summit and then losing the desire? As his long and winding non-league path criss-crossed Hampshire, Ian’s day-job was as a plumber and a pipe fitter for BP. Subsequently his supervisory work in the oil industry has taken him to Pakistan, Oman, Libya and a whole host of UK based oil refineries, although he has made Stamford in Yorkshire the base for his family. He travelled down from there in 2006 for the 30^th anniversary celebrations of his Wembley heroics. By 2021 however he had settled back in near Southampton with all his family. In June 2024 his FA Cup medal sold at auction for £15,000 (see scrapbook section).