It was not something you expect to see, people dancing and waving, singing and smiling, celebrating the fact that they come from . . . Scunthorpe. Yet there they were, last weekend, turning Wembley Stadium, in all its pristine, concrete glory, into a corner of faraway and forgotten North Lincolnshire. Scunny had won promotion to football’s Championship and everyone present was relishing their moment on centre stage.

The spotlight doesn’t generally land on Scunthorpe, even if it has attracted headlines of late, thanks (if that is the right word) to the mortgage expenses claims of Elliot Morley, the local Labour MP, and the row over foreign workers at the nearby Lindsay oil refinery. Indeed, by and large, many of us do not know, nor even care, where it is, sitting in the shadow of the larger Leeds, Sheffield and Doncaster to the west, the more established Hull to the north and the prettier Lincoln to the south. Its locals opt to do their shopping elsewhere and the younger generation often move on to pastures new as soon as they can. It has, understandably, something of an inferiority complex.

Yet the football club, like many in smaller towns up and down the league, is close to Scunthorpe’s heart. Even its nickname gives a clue to the town’s economic engine: the Iron. The club’s badge, too, a workman’s fist carrying a girder. This is a steel town, its skyline dwarfed by an enormous Corus industrial plant, its origins traceable to five small north Lincolnshire villages that came together after iron was discovered.

Scunthorpe steel can be found all over the world, in the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, at Wembley (appropriately) and in everyday objects, such as paperclips and lightbulbs, but the industry is not what it was. About 25,000 were once employed in Scunthorpe’s three steelworks, but after the closure of the Normanby Park plant and the Redbourne complex in the early Eighties, that number is closer to 5,000, with most working for Corus, the Indian-owned steel group.

The recession has resulted in lower demand and falling prices for steelmakers around the world and the Scunthorpe plant’s order book has been hit severely amid what the company describes as the worst market conditions for generations.

Corus has cut 93 jobs at the site and a few more are likely to follow. While thousands face the prospect of losing their jobs at the group’s plants on Teesside and in Rotherham, Corus has reiterated its commitment to Scunthorpe and even aims to take on a number of apprentices and trainees this year. Mark Kirk, the Labour leader of North Lincolnshire Council, believes that Corus’s decision to hold firm in the town “secures Scunthorpe for a number of years” and is a huge vote of confidence in the local area and its workforce.

However, the clue to Scunthorpe’s future may lie beyond the smelters and the factory gates in the charming agricultural hinterland that contributes to its claim to being an “industrial garden town”. The hope for many in Scunthorpe is that the town’s green credentials, reinforced by the sweeping landscaped lawns that skirt its built-up heart, may one day be based not on the superficial but on a meaningful industry, with grand green energy plans for the redevelopment of the nearby South Humber bank, which could create more than 10,000 jobs. A number of wind turbines have already been erected in the area, very different from the giant, coal-fired, smoking power station chimneys that dot the landscape elsewhere.

The proposed Lincolnshire Lakes project to the west of Scunthorpe is also earmarked as a source of future jobs, with the town hoping to nurture a more technology-focused industry in the region.

While acknowledging that many people may not know where the town is, Mr Kirk believes that no one should underestimate the importance of the area to the UK in terms of trade through the ports that lie near by or its potential role in a greener Britain. He adds that the area’s economy is being held back to some degree by tolls on the Humber Bridge, which may present an obstacle for many businesses in the region. Another hurdle for the local economy is the lack of a direct train service to London. Mr Kirk says that moves are afoot to introduce one, although it is not expected for several years.

Road links, however, are excellent and the town’s location in the middle of England has attracted several distribution businesses to the area, as well as manufacturers who need to transport their products nationwide. One such business is Can-Pack, a Polish canmaker, which supplies the likes of Carlsberg and Stella. The group started working with the big Western brewers when they moved into Eastern Europe and has started to win business in the UK.

Jerzy Laszcz, the group’s managing director, said that he had looked at 34 locations across the north of England before choosing Scunthorpe, which he said offered the best location, price and availability of workforce.

The group, the fourth-biggest canmaker in Europe after Ball, Rexam and Crown, started production in the town this year on the site of a former MFI Kitchens factory. The plant, which is able to make about 2.6 million beverage cans a day, employs 158 staff. Many are Polish but Mr Laszcz expects to employ more locals in the coming years. He says that canned beer is not especially sensitive to the recession, so the business is faring well and has plenty of capacity for expansion. Attracting a Polish company was something of a coup for the town and Scunthorpe hopes that a Spanish company will soon follow suit, although this investment has been put on hold because of the economic climate.

The downturn has hit businesses already based in the town, with Mondi, the packaging group, cutting about 160 workers, ColepCCL, the aerospace manufacturer, making about a quarter of its 300 workforce redundant and many local companies forced to cut staff, with — not altogether surprisingly — those connected to the steel industry hit hardest.

Competition from other retail centres, armed with a wider, greater collection of stores and brands, is a fact of life in Scunthorpe, but the loss of about 50 jobs when Woolworths closed its store in the town after Christmas was a particular blow. Its main shopping precinct needs a large retailer to inject some life and attract shoppers. Yet Ian Kelly, the chief executive of the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce, says that most companies in the town appear to be holding up well and that most businesspeople remain upbeat.

Mr Kelly hopes the region will also receive a boost this summer from tourists, as more Britons opt to holiday at home: “People call it sunny Scunny for a reason — there are plenty of things to be happy about.” With the likes of Newcastle United, Middlesbrough and the rest coming to Glanford Park soon, every Iron fan will agree with that.

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