Phil Sumbler
There are many occasions when the word legend is uttered in football circles when it is nowhere near deserved. It is a word banded about very easily but the reality is there are very few who actually earn and deserve the word legend but one of them today turns 70 years old and is the very definition of the word in every sense.
Swansea City Club President Alan Curtis incredibly hits that milestone today and for many of us of a certain age I am sure it makes us sit back and wonder where time has gone for a legend to hit that age.
It is a well trodden saying but simply Alan Curtis is Swansea City. If you cut him open he may not bleed black and white but he may as well do so such is his affiliation with the club that encompassed multiple spells as a player, coach, manager, ambassador and general all round good guy. They broke the mould when they made Curt and it is exceptionally unlikely that we will ever see another of his kind at the club.
He was a player when we sealed our first ever promotion to the top flight in May 1981 and he was part of the coaching set up when we repeated the feat thirty years later at Wembley. He was there when we won our only major trophy in 2013 and you can guarantee that if you introduced him on the pitch at any home game in the future then the welcome would be one reserved for only the special people. Curt is one of those.
He has seen the good times at Swansea but also been there for the bad as well but, as he said in last weekend’s programme there is a simple recipe that is there when things go well.
“Whenever we have had togetherness, I have always felt we can do something special,” said Curt.
“I have experienced relegations and difficult times, but I feel when we have needed to do something or to achieve something, then that togetherness has underpinned everything.
“It’s a massive part of the club, when you have it, it’s incredibly powerful.
“Being on the pitch was like freedom to me, to be out there playing. I have always said to people that you should play as long as you can because you are a long time out of that.
“When you play you are expressing yourself and, if the game is not going well, it’s within your power to change things. You can do something about it.
“Coaching is the next best thing but, really – aside from maybe substitutions – you don’t have that power and control to change a game. The players do that and that’s why playing is such a wonderful thing.
“For example, I vividly remember my final league game for the club against Bolton at The Vetch. I looked up at the big clock and the time was 20 to five, and games used to finish pretty much bang on that time and I felt like my career flashed before my eyes.
“I was lost in my own world for a minute or two with that realisation that it was over, that was it. You feel that because you know what you are losing, all those amazing experiences and feelings, that companionship with the other players.
“I do find myself stopping and realising that when I first came down to the club I was 17 years of age, which means I have been involved with Swansea City for 53 years,” he says with a chuckle.
“That’s not been continuous but that’s how it started and I find it incredible, because it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been 53 years and I have had some time off for good behaviour!
“I’ve had a lot of different jobs, but I could never have imagined I would still be at the club in some capacity.
“There have been some tremendous times, and the highs far outweigh the lows or any disappointments.
“The club has come so far in that time. It’s a special place and it has been the biggest thing in my life outside of my family and friends.”
Everyone at JackArmy.net would like to wish Curt a very happy birthday and here’s to many more to come in the future as well.
The man for which the word legend was invented.
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Ivor Allchurch
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