Last season was supposed to be Hughes last season as a professional before he concentrated full time on his job as international manager of Wales but it seems as though Hughes may be tempted into having a change of heart and not hanging up his boots just yet after all.
Last week Hughes had his best result yet as manager of Wales when the Welsh pulled off a shock victory against Germany. Hughes has had an illustrious career as a player for both club and country, he began his career as an apprentice in 1980 at Manchester United where he won the FA Cup in 1985 before being sold to Spanish giants Barcelona for 2.3 million pounds in 1986.
After scoring 4 goals in 28 games Hughes was shipped out to Bayern Munich on loan. In July 1988 he returned to Old Trafford for 1.8 million pounds to begin the most successful period of his career, in a seven year spell between 1988 and 1995 he won three Premiership winners medals, two Premiership runners up medals, two FA Cup winners medals, one FA Cup runner up medal and the European Cup Winners Cup against his old club Barcelona where he scored both goals in the final for United in a 2-1 victory in Rotterdam.
In 1995 the Manchester United legend left the club of the nineties in search of first team football at Chelsea. Hughes was again successful and in 1997 he picked up yet another FA Cup winners medal. In 1998 Hughes traded London's most fashionable club for the not so fashionable Southampton where he scored just two goals in 57 starts.
In March 2000 Hughes left Southampton to play for Everton where unfortunately once again he failed to make a big impact scoring just one goal in sixteen starts for the Toffees. In October 2000 Graeme Souness tempted Hughes to drop down to Division 1 to play for Blackburn Rovers. With Blackburn Hughes won promotion to the Premiership and last season won the Worthington Cup crowning what was believed to be his final season.
Hughes is now 38 and Brian Laws is trying to tempt Hughes to play for The Iron. I am sure many of you are reading this and thinking that there is no chance that Mark Hughes would want to finish his career with Scunthorpe United, he is after all a living legend of the British game.
But then who would have predicted that Peter Beagrie would have took up the offer of third division football with us or that Tony Cottee would want go play for Barnet? The Mark Hughes speculation reminds me greatly of last season when rumours of Peter Beagrie signing for the Iron were emerging.
Laws says he is ‘working' on Hughes, just as he did Beagrie I seem to remember. Unfortunately though Hughes may just be too big a fish for Laws to catch, he must have nearly broke his back trying to reel in Beagrie! But whether Laws does complete what would be the biggest signing of Scunthorpe's 103 year history or not you can rest assured pre-season is well and truly underway!