Skilful midfielder Matty played and scored in a friendly against Scarborough Athletic, while on trial from Scarborough Town in August 2009, but didn't sign for the club until July 2014. He went on to make 34 appearances, scoring two goals, before leaving the club at the start of the 2015/16 season.

Being from Whitby means the club has always been a part of my life. I used to go up to The Turnbull on most Saturday's with my Uncle Tony and we went down to Wembley in 1997 when I was five with all of of my family.

Despite hundreds of visits to the ground as a kid I only got to play on the pitch a few times growing up, so I was delighted to get the chance later on, as I know first-hand how important the club can be to the town.

I had actually played a couple of pre-season games in 2009 when I was 17, but I played most of my football at Scarborough Town that year, before I went to play and study in the US for four years.

When I returned in 2014, I started pre-season after getting in contact with Macca and Daz. I also had the option to reunite with my ex-manager, Mitch Cook who’d been great for me previously at Pickering, but I decided to test myself at the higher level once I knew that Daz wanted me at Whitby.

I think every player remembers their first goal. I had to wait a little bit longer than I’d hoped but to get it in a home win against Stamford was even better, with lots of my friends and family watching.

Playing Blyth is always massive for us so I look back on both of those matches with good memories as well. We were unlucky not to beat them away where we drew 2-2, so we were really up for the Boxing Day match in front of a decent crowd. And to win it 1-0 in the fashion we did, with a late winner from big Pelly made it even more special.

All of the lads were great. We had a good mix of experience with Robbo & Macca and then obviously I got along well with those of a similar age such as Dale, Blandy, Ste Snaith & Niall Doran.

As I was always first on and last off the coach for away days, I spent a lot of time with Shep who got on at York. We always had a quick trip to the Wetherby bookies to check out the day's horse racing on our routine pit stop before the rest of the squad join us.

There was a time when Sam Calvert and I were both in the team which meant there were two locals, so we did a lot of travelling together. I know the fans appreciated this at the time and would love to see more going forward.

It was sad for me to leave halfway through the season, but I had a job opportunity in London that I couldn’t turn down. Everyone at the club was brilliant at the time and of course I’m still as much of a fan as I was at Wembley 23 years ago!