Alan Shoulder, the very essence of all that’s supposed about good stuff and little bundles, has died after a long and gallant battle with cancer, writes Mike Amos. He would have been 72 on 4 February.
Alan was a footballer and a family man, a miner, a manager and a top, top bloke. He was a Coundon lad, and that was very important, too. He stood just 5ft 5ins, more fat on a pit prop, but figuratively and on occasion physically punched far above his weight.
He will be remembered for his role in Blyth Spartans’ extraordinary FA Cup run in 1977-78, for his immediate and indelible impact at Newcastle United where he became a people’s champion, for successful spells at Carlisle United and at Hartlepool and for later years back in the Northern League where last he played when 53.
Those who knew him also remember his indomitability. “I saw him at Christmas,” recalls friend and fellow Coundon lad Paul Aldsworth. “He knew he was dying but, God love him, he had us in stitches with his jokes and stories. He didn’t realise how funny he was.”
Coundon’s a former pit village a couple of miles east of Bishop Auckland. Leeholme’s joined indivisibly. It was for Leeholme Juniors that first he played competitive football, an early game against Mainsforth Juniors refereed by future Fifa official George Courtney. Alan still talked of it.
“I think George thought World War III had broken out, there were fights all over the place. It was nothing in that league, you fought on the field and you fought off it.”
George remembers it, too. “Alan was a warrior then and a warrior all his life. I loved refereeing him, especially when he was a junior, frightened of no one but a wonderful character and such a nice man.”
He joined Bishop Auckland in 1972, top scorer for three successive seasons, was also in the Langley Park Rams Head team – managed by future Blyth team mate and manager Brian Slane – which won the FA Sunday Cup in 1976.
In December 1977, after some fractiousness at Bishop which also involved the Northern League, he finally joined Blyth for a fee said to be £200 and, of course, went straight into the team and an FA Cup third round win against Enfield.
In the delayed fourth they were drawn at second division Stoke City, Alan’s mum among the crowd. “It was only the third match she’d ever seen,” he once told me. “She was interested in us as kids, not as footballers.”
Spartans won 3-2, his mum and half Northumberland headed happily homewards. “The only disappointment was that the draw had already been made and we had Wrexham, who’d beaten Newcastle in the previous round. What if it had been Newcastle.”
The rest’s history, what might be supposed an Alf Grey area. The following season Alan was suspended for three matches by Spartans for playing Sunday football – for Coundon Workmen’s Club, inevitably – and sought a transfer, protesting that several other contracted players turned out elsewhere on the Sabbath.
“I think I’ve been hard done by. I’m upset about it and feel very bitter,” he said, uncharacteristically, at the time.
The word – the expectation, indeed – was that he’d join Spennymoor United while still working as a deputy down Horden colliery. Perhaps remembering the adage about shouting down the shaft to find a centre forward – hadn’t Jackie Milburn been a miner? – Newcastle manager Bill McGarry had other ideas.
Alan became a Magpie in early December 1978, £20,000 fee, and went straight into the team. “I told the manager I couldn’t get kicked any harder than I did in the Northern League,” he said. “I think that’s what swayed it.”
“You wouldn’t say it was a dream come true because I’d never got round to dreaming about it in the first place.”
United had been relegated from the first division the previous season and were finding life uncomfortable in the second. Instantly he was successful, immediately among the scorers. “His spirited play captured the hearts of the United crowd, a breath of fresh air in United’s flagging side with his trademark infectious enthusiasm,” club historian, Paul Joannou once wrote.
Today, Paul remembers him no less affectionately. “Alan never forgot his roots, such a great lad as a player and a man. The Shoulder/Peter Withe combination was one of the best, albeit only for a short time.”
Alan continued to play and manage in the Northern League and elsewhere, coached the kids at the Coundon village school where Marie taught, turned out (of course) for the workmen’s club. His last Northern League match, for Brandon United, was when he was 53. If ever there were a football man, it was Alan Shoulder.
This abbreviated tribute is reproduced with kind permission of Mike Amos. To read the full tribute, visit Mike’s online blog at mikeamosblog.wordpress.com.
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
