Now cruise to the title without me, says departing Blyth Spartans midfielder Stephen Turnbull

STEPHEN TURNBULL will be closely following Blyth Spartans’ title chase from a cruise ship – and he wants them to be promoted by the time he’s back on English soil.

But he leaves with the Spartans 12 points clear at the top of the Evo-Stik NPL Premier table, thanks to Saturday’s win against Hednesford that made it nine wins on the spin.

“It’s 12 weeks on, 12 weeks off so it’s kind of the end of my football career,” Turnbull told The NLP. “I went away before, but knew I could come back. This is real life and the job now. I join the ship in New Zealand and it makes its way back across the world to Southampton for April 27.

“I’ll get to see the world, but it’s tinged with sadness because I can’t play football anymore. The last home game a couple of weeks ago, with a few minutes to go I was thinking, ‘This will be the last time I play here’. After my last game on Tuesday, I was upset.

“Hopefully we can see it through. It’s a really good squad and the front four are on fire. We’ve been blowing teams away.

“I’ll be staying in the group chat so I’ll still have the banter with the lads. They were saying they were going to delete me so I had to beg them to keep me in. They will keep me entertained while I’m at work.

“The last game of the season is April 24, so I’m hoping they win it then and have a presentation a week later so I can get along for a beer.”

A fans’ favourite, he’ll be forever remembered for a stunning free-kick on live TV when they knocked Hartlepool out of the FA Cup first round in 2014.

“A few of the fans got me some presents and cards, including a frame with a picture of the Hartlepool goal,” he added.

“Everyone has been really nice, I’ve been really humbled by it all. I’ve been at Blyth four times and we’ve always done well and had good seasons.

“We had an FA Trophy run, the FA Cup run – which is obviously the highlight of my career and probably of my life.”

Twin of Darlington midfielder Phil, Turnbull also hopes his brother can get promoted with the Quakers.

“Philly finally got his first goal for them recently, and it was a pearler. We’ve been having a competition on local TV and he’s blown me away with his goal. But, then again, he didn’t score in front of 2.5million on the BBC, did he?”