The Peterborough Sports legend that is Jimmy Dean admits to an emotional return to the club with Scunthorpe United

The multi-promotion winning Sports boss was back at PIMS Park for the first time since quitting to take over at Scunthorpe a year ago to the day.

And it was a winning return as a first-half goal was enough to see off a spirited Sports in front of a bumper crowd of 880, many of them from Scunthorpe, in a National League North fixture.

Sports v Scunny report

"It was hard coming back,” Dean told the Scunthorpe FC website. “There were so many people I needed to see and speak to, but they had to take a back seat until after the game as I was there to manage a football club who had a football match to win.

"Obviously I had a lot of fantastic times here. It was strange coming back and sitting in the opposition dugout a year to the day when I was announced as Scunthorpe manager.

"It was a bit emotional, but hand on heart I wish them every success for the rest of the season. I hope they a run together and reach the play-offs.

"The pitch wasn’t conducive to playing good football for either side, although a bit of magic for our goal won us the game. Sports kept us honest. They didn’t have too many scoring chances, but we didn’t finish them off and that’s always a worry in the final stages. We controlled it well though and our fans were outstanding, They were noisy and vocal throughout."

Scunthorpe have plenty to do to justify pre-season hot favouritism for the title. They are second, nine points behind leaders Tamworth, albeit with two games in hand.

Sports are 15th, seven points clear of the relegation zone and 11 points outside the play-off places, although they games in hand in most teams in the division.

Sports are next in National League action at struggling Spennymoor Town next Saturday. They then host fourth-placed Chester on Tuesday, February 6 (7.45pm).