Scunthorpe Hasta La Muerte: The extraordinary journey of English football's Spanish pioneer

In September 1996, Alex Calvo Garcaía, a largely unknown Basque footballer arrived in England. Recently released by Eibar in the lower reaches of the Spanish league, the journey represented the 24 year-old's final opportunity to make it as a professional footballer. Without a word of English and at a time when foreign players were rare on British soil—and unheard of in the town of Scunthorpe—the odds seemed stacked against him.

What followed was an unlikely eight-year long love affair, in w...