Salford captain Curtis Tilt once thought he would spend his working life operating heavy equipment – now his next job is to stop Manchester City goal machine Erling Haaland. The 33-year-old defender will lead his team out for one of the biggest games of his career as the League Two outfit head to the nearby Etihad Stadium in the FA Cup third round on Saturday.
It is a far cry from his early working days at a quarry in the midlands, controlling 50-tonne excavators and eating pies every day. I enjoyed working on the diggers. Walsall-born Tilt said: “When I left school, it was just my mum at home so I had to go out and work really.
“Playing football and working was not really something that I wanted to do – and I needed to work weekends as well as in the week. “So I worked on a quarry, basically just machinery, JCBs, Komatsus – 40 tonne, 50 tonne. It was just digging out sand and putting it through a machine so there’s no lumps in and just sending it on its way.
“I did that for years. I enjoyed working on the diggers and it’s something that I’d probably do when I leave football because I just enjoyed it. “But I was unfit. There used to be a van pulling up on the side and I used to just eat pies, sausage rolls. My diet was horrendous.
“I thought once I finished football at 16, I didn’t think I was going to play another game to be honest.”. Tilt’s career path changed when his friend Tom Tonks – who coincidentally will be playing against Tottenham with non-League Tamworth this weekend – took him along to a tournament he was playing in.
