The start of a new Football season always fills me with hopes and dreams of what could be on offer throughout our domestic league programme, the FA Cup, FA Trophy, etc. This season has also become a very special one for me personally, as towards the end of last season I was given two very special awards, both from within our own Salisbury Football club.
In February the Supporters’ Club asked me to take on the role of President, which fills me with great pride, and I intend to perform the role with honour and enthusiasm. It also cements my connection with the club after more than fifty years of service.
Throughout those fifty great years, I have been involved in many roles at Salisbury Football Club, initially as a young supporter along with my parents, who often sponsored games and advertised our family business, John Green & Sons in the match day programmes.
Then as a schoolboy, playing in a Schools’ Cup final at Victoria Park with Downton School, and later as an opponent with Bournemouth Football club in pre-season friendlies and in the Western Counties Floodlit League as a young pro, before being transferred to Mansfield Town, where my life changed dramatically.
During the first half of my league debut with Mansfield Town against Northampton Town, on 12 August 1972, aged just 21, I felt I was playing well with an assist, after forcing a corner and flicking the ball on at the near post for Frank Wignall to stab home the only goal of the game. Whilst in the goal mouth, waiting for that corner to be taken I began to feel very unwell with pains shooting through my throat, arms and chest. I managed to get back to the dressing room at half-time, but collapsed, I was suffering a major heart attack. This of course resulted in the end of my professional career.
After two long years in recovery, I was advised to return to sport to keep myself fit. Unable to rejoin the Football league, I signed as a player, with our great club. Salisbury Football Club were the only club in our area prepared to take a chance on my ability to completely recover, kindly offering a monthly contract, giving me the time that I needed to get myself back to full fitness.
Under the guidance of doctors and the patience of the manager, Robin North, l returned to full fitness, quickly winning a regular place in the first team, eventually attaining the honour of top goal scorer in that first difficult season. Continuing over the next five seasons to score 136 goals, playing around 270 games for my club, a feat I like to think helped me to repay the trust and faith the club put in me and my chances of recovery.
Shortly after my retirement from football, I started a supply and fit kitchen company “Anya’s Country Kitchens”. The company did well over 26 years, allowing my wife Anja and myself to become one of the main sponsors of the club for over three years, around the time of the successful Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest FA Cup years, giving us some great memories to cherish. During that period, it was also my job, on match days, to look after our customers in hospitality boxes, a position I still enjoy today.
At 65 I decided to retire, but that didn’t last long. In 2018 the club needed a commercial manager. I agreed to take the job on a temporary basis, which through Novichok and later Covid took me through to my 70th birthday in 2021. Although it was a tough job, throughout those difficult years, I thoroughly enjoyed it and made a lot of new friends, who together with so many of my existing friends and acquaintances locally, helped me provide the backing that the club required to bring some of the best non-league players to the Ray Mac.
Also, in March this year, our chairman presented me with the equally great honour of putting my name on the hospitality area as a mark of my service. It fills me with great pride to be recognised by our club as an ambassador within hospitality, worthy of being noted and to be associated with other great club stalwarts in Cyril Smith, Derek Sharp, Alec Hayter and others. I thank our dedicated Chairman Ian Hammond, and Ian Pearson our Commercial Manager, for making this happen.
Two great honours, together with fifty great years of sport and friendship, enjoying good health, some great footballers, great administrators, great managers, and a superb Supporters’ Club. I now look forward with hope and wishful thinking to a new era, this time through our superb, hardworking Supporters’ Club, yet still involved with the joys of creating a fun environment in hospitality.
Fifty great years. So many great moments, events and occasions, that I could write a book on it!!!!
ALAN GREEN x COYW
