The Swansea City vice captain has his own song where Swans fans dream of a team of Alan Tates and you can even buy a t-shirt proclaiming just that.
But while the song may have taken off, Tatey himself is not quite so sure that the team would be that successful
“I’m not sure that a team of Alan Tates would actually be much good but I love it when the fans sing it — it makes me laugh,” Tate told the Evening Post.
“The Swansea fans have been great to me ever since I first came down here and it’s nice for any player to hear them singing his name.
“But I don’t know how many results a team of Alan Tates would get.
“We’d try hard, that’s for sure, but we probably wouldn’t be that pretty to watch.
“I’m not bad in goal and I’ve played all across the back four, so we might get the odd clean sheet.
“But I’m not sure what would happen when we went forward.
“There might be a couple of long-range efforts, and we might score one goal every season or two.
“We would be closing down all the time and there would be plenty of effort and tackles going in, but our finishing wouldn’t be up to much.
“I think the fans know that there will be nobody trying harder than I do on the pitch,” Tate says.
“Yes, I will come up against better players than me at times, but I don’t think I’ll ever face someone who has got a bigger heart.
“The desire to do well is a big thing for me and I think the fans recognise that.
“To have the penalty retaken at Plymouth was really disappointing, as was the fact that the second rebound dropped straight back to their player,” Tate concedes.
“Anywhere else and we would have cleared it and been celebrating the win we deserved.
“You don’t mind the Newcastle equaliser as much, because that came from a good cross and a good header.
“But it’s frustrating to have lost four points over the two games, because they would have put us in with a shout of automatic promotion.
“As it is at the moment, we are still scrapping to secure a play-off place.
“We’ve got Derby and then Peterborough left in February and then we’ve got seven games in March
“Seven in one month is ridiculous really, but we have to deal with it because March will go a long way towards deciding where we end up.
“Apart from Christmas, this is going to be the most important period in our season and we just have to hope that we have everyone fit.”
You can order your “Team of Alan Tates” T-shirt by visiting http://www.cultzeros.co.uk/swanseacity.asp?PARTNER=planetswans
