In the summer of 1989 I volunteered to coach and manage a team of Eight year old boys who were starting up as Rothwell Juniors Football Team. My son James was one of the players and the rest were local Rothwell Lads.
After Several months training we started playing 11 a side friendly games which we kept winning despite having only a small squad to choose from.
One Saturday morning during our regular training session on St Mary's School pitch in Rothwell, Lynne Smith and her son Alan turned up asking whether he could join our team. I told her he was welcome to join in with my training but as we were already so successful he might not be good enough to get into the team.
Forty five minutes later I realised that Alan was something special, his pace, touch and upper body strength were far in advance of the rest of my team and indeed of any player in any other team we subsequently played.
That same Saturday afternoon I dropped the No.9 kit of at Alan's home and on Sunday morning he duly obliged by scoring four goals in his first game for us.
We continued playing friendly's during this 1989/90 start up season, regularly winning with Alan knocking in four or five goals each game. The culmination of that season was the trouncing of Farsley Celtic 6-0 in the annual challenge trophy between our two clubs.
The following season 1990/91, we entered the Garforth League as under 10's and with a small squad and Alan missing some matches with his BMX cycling commitments we finished second in the League and runners up in the cup. Alan was the runaway top scorer in the whole league.
During the summer break a council football coaching sessions were held at Rothwell Sports Centre and five of my team were invited to train with Leeds United at Fearnville Sports Centre. Because Alan had not attended this council coaching session and because football scouts and indeed academies had not been invented we had the situation where the finest talent in West Yorkshire was not picked up.
Determined to correct this I spent four days ringing Elland Road before I managed to speak to Colin Morris, who at that time was the sole coach in charge of Leeds United Junior Players. I explained to him Alan's brilliance and he told me to get him up at Fearnville for the next training session and he would have a look at him. The rest they say is history, except to say that to this day Rothwell Juniors have never so much as received a thank you from Leeds United for pointing him in the direction of their club.
Season 1991/92, commenced with Alan packing in his BMX biking and deciding that football was to be his chosen sport. With the addition of two other quality players we won 18 games and drew the other two and won the Garfoth League 1st division by a distance, with Alan scoring in all competitions in excess of eighty goals. It got to the stage where opposing teams were as good as beaten when they saw him arrive for the Sunday morning games.
We cruised into the Challenge Cup Final the same season and on the 26th April 1992 faced a strong Farsley Celtic team on Garforth Towns Pitch. In front of a large crowd Farsley scored first and defended resolutely, as we constantly attacked, until two minutes from the final whistle when Alan received the ball from our corner and smashed in the equalizer. We went ito extra time, playing with confidence and two more goals from Alan helped us to run out comfortable 4-1 winners.
Parents and the team went back to the White Hart Pub in Woodlesford that day for a cup winning celebration and listened to the radio as Leeds United beat Sheffield United 3-2, with Liverpool beating Manchester United 2-0, Leeds won the First Division Championship - What a day, could life get any better?
The 1992/93 season was equally successful winning the double yet again with Alan again scoring over eighty goals. But our success had caught up with us, at the end of the season Leeds United signed four of our team, including Alan on school boy forms and they could no longer play for Rothwell Juniors. Gareth Evans who was later released by Leeds is now playing for Huddersfield Town.
Alan still lives in and remains a Rothwell lad and we are grateful for his assistance at our annual presentation night ceremonies. We wish him all the very best with his football career.
As told by Jim O'Donnell (Chairman Rothwell Juniors FC)
(Have you any memories of Rothwell Juniors that you would like to put on the Club History Page? - Are you Pictured above with Alan? - email me your comments
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OTHER ROTHWELL JUNIORS SUCCESS STORIES
Hi Dave,
Just to let you know that Chris has settled in very well at Man Utd Academy and has had a very good 1st progress report from the goalkeeper coach.
He is still currently the only keeper at u-14 level so is playing all the games at the moment but there will be times when other trialist keepers are tried out.
Chris's target, set by his coach, for the end of this season/start of next season is to get into the England U-16 trials (that's how much they rate him)
When Manchester played Bayern Leverkusen in the Champions League they brought over their u-14 team so Chris played against them on the afternoon of the 1st team game and then was given two tickets to watch the 1st team game that night. Leverkusen u14 beat Man Utd u14 2-1 however they haven't been beaten for a couple of years so it wasn't a bad result.
In April this year Man Utd u14 have been invited to Dallas, Texas to participate in the Dallas Cup (see www.dallascup.com).
Chris could be playing against the top teams from Mexico, Brazil and Europe as well as the up coming teams in the US.
All the best
Steve Backhouse.
24th October 2005
Hi Dave,
Just to let you know Chris has settled in at Sunderland very well. He is having to bide his time on the bench until the 2nd year apprentice goalkeeper moves up into regular reserve team football. Chris has played three times for Sunderland U18: v Barnsley 0-0,v Bolton 0-0, v Huddersfield 2-0 to Sunderland. So you can see he has kept clean sheets in all his outings.
Pre-season he played for Sunderland Reserves against Scarborough !st team and had an exceptional game even though he let 4 goals in in a 4-0 defeat. Chris was also on the bench for the Reserves 1st game of the season against Birmingham and found himself alongside Darren Anderton in the tunnel
Sunderland are making sure he has somehting to fall back on by making him take extra education in a sports related Btec style course.
Chris would be the first to admit that the hardest part of being an Apprentice footballer is being away from home for so long but we do try and see him on regular occasions and he does try and get home about once every three weeks.
Chris gets on well with all the players up north and is currently in a longstanding bet with Kelvin Davies, the 1st team keeper on who can keep the most clean sheets. Chris is winning 3-0 so far.
All the best to Rothwell Juniors
Steve Backhouse
ALAN SMITH PICTURED (third from right on back row) WITH HIS UNDER 11 TEAM MATES