975 GAMES, 21 YEARS! IT’S BEEN QUITE A RIDE... ES, 21 S BEEN IDE...
WHEN ex-Manchester City keeper Andy Dibble pitched up at Altrincham in 1998, Stuart Coburn thought his days were numbered. Yet 18 years later, the affable goalie was still there, the club’s record appearance maker and a bonafide Alty legend.
Here he looks back over the past two decades and tells us which team-mate also made a “horrible opponent”, how a future Premier League starlet upset Lee Sinnott, and why Rod Thornley never failed to have the dressing room in stitches.
FIRST CLUB
Irlam Town, in the North West Counties. It must have been about 1994. I only played there for one season because the club went bust.
The chairman was a funny fella.We never officially got paid but Rochdale were sniffing around me. So after a game, he’d come up, shake my hand and leave £20 there. It got to the point where the whistle would go and I’d immediately look to see where he was!
One day, we turned up for the game to find loads of firemen knocking about. Turned out the clubhouse had burned down. We found out years later that he’d done it as an insurance job.
BEST MANAGER
Graham Heathcote at Alty was the main one. Nowadays, everybody wants you to have badges and qualifications. It’s UEFA this, UEFA that.
Graham wasn’t about that. Yes, he put great sessions on. But it was more about his experience and his knowledge of Non-League. He got you organised, knew how to set up against anybody.
And he was Altrincham through and through. He got across the values of the club. When I first joined, he said ‘Don’t just make this a club you play for to pick up a bit of money – make it your club’. That always stuck with me.
He was loyal too. When Bernard Taylor arrived as manager in 1998, he brought Andy Dibble in. I thought ‘That’s me done’. But when Andy got injured, I did really well.
Andy got fit and Bernard was all for putting him back. But Graham said ‘No, if you let Stuart down now, you’ll lose him for good’. Thanks to that, I was still there 18 years later.
BEST TEAM-MATE
I’ve played with some top players who have gone on to great things – Ian Craney, Kevin Ellison, young Duncan Watmore.
But, for pure technique, Colin Little was head and shoulders above anyone. Great touch, either foot – I know he played in the League with Crewe but he should have gone much higher.
He breathed football. He’d be jabbering away on the coach and you’d say ‘Leave it Col, footy is finished mate’. He’d go quiet for five minutes then it would be ‘But what about this?’
He’s doing really well for himself now, coaching Man United’s Under-18s. Colin was the one who really taught Marcus Rashford him the art of being a centre forward, and you can tell.
FIRST PROMOTION
With Trafford, to UniBond Division One in 1997. It was a top set of lads. I think we got 94 points in the end, but it still went to the last day of the season.
We went into the final day on 91 and Newcastle Town were on 88. I can’t remember who we played but we were 5-0 up at half-time and everyone just wanted the game to be over so we could celebrate.
FUNNIEST PLAYER
It’s so hard to pick one. Peter Band. Mad Dog Mark Maddox. Gary Scott. That whole team from the early to mid-2000s was full of them.
Rod Thornley was great as well. He’s a masseur at United now. Graham was our manager at the time and just before 3 o’clock he’d say ‘Right, let’s be serious now’.
And just out of Graham’s view, Rod would be mimicking him. Graham had this pair of glasses, sellotaped together where one leg had come off.
He was always fiddling with them and Rod used to mime it perfectly. But every time Graham turned round, Rod would be deadly serious.
It’s a shame because those times have gone a bit now. Everyone’s deadly serious. The last couple of years, me, Tim Deasy and a couple of other senior lads would go to the bar wherever we played and have a pint.
The young lads have got a rehydration drink or one of these protein milkshakes. I know they want to be professional, but I’m thinking ‘I’ve been at work all week, I want a pint’!’ It’s changed the dressing room dynamic a lot.
FUNNIEST INCIDENT
I remember in Duncan Watmore’s first year, we played Solihull Moors away. Neil Tolson, the assistant manager, said ‘The gaffer isn’t happy with Duncan’.
I asked why and he pointed across the bus. Duncan was fast asleep, headphones on, totally gone. I said ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Hewould up n’t tell me.
Anyway, we were 1-0 up in the game with two minutes to go and ended up losing 2-1.We were going for promotion and afterwards, Lee Sinnott went ballistic.
He turned on Duncan and said ‘You, young man, I thought you wanted to be a footballer’. Duncan said ‘I went off after an hour, why are you blaming me?’
Lee said ‘Why? Because you were up until four in the morning’. Duncan was pleading his innon cence, saying he’d been in bed.
Lee just said, ‘Well in that case, why did I get a 20-minute voicemail in the middle of the night with you and all your mates laughing and joking?’ Poor Duncan – who was a student in a shared house at the time – must have knocked his phone. We were delighted, because heham of mered Duncan instead of us!
BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT
I’ve been promoted with Alty three times, and once with Trafford. But, personally, it has to be breaking the appearance record for Altrincham last season.
It was 677 and I ended up getting 689. It was a shame I got injured at the start of the season though. I worked out I’d played something like
975 career games so if I’d stayed fit I’d probably have broken the 700-mark for Alty and 1,000 overall.
Still, I can’t complain. If you’d said I’d play 689 games when I joined all those years ago, I’d have thought you were crazy. And people move for an extra tenner these days, so I’d be surprised if it ever got broken.
LOWEST MOMENT
This year, the injury that finished my career. There were two minutes to go at Dover and I heard a pop in my calf area. I turned round to Shaun Densmore and I said ‘Has somebody thrown something at me?’ But I was fooling myself. I’d heard lads talk about doing their achilles and I knew that’s what had happened.
At my age, I thought ‘This could be it’. I had every intention of coming back but it just hit a point where things stopped improving. I always had the vision of me walking off to rapturous applause, a big fanfare and being able to say ‘Thanks everybody, that’s me done’. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.
TOUGHEST PLACE TO GO
Workington was a slog.You used to drive up, looking at the snow on the hills. Nobody liked going there. And Gateshead Stadium was really soulless – a huge stadium with nobody in it. I remember playing there a couple of years ago and, first half, they had loads of ball boys round the pitch. But as soon as they went 2-0 up, the ball boys vanished. The ball would go into the stand and you had to run 60 metres or clamber over seats to get it back. Eventually, the gaffer put our subs behind the goal to stop it happening.
TOUGHEST OPPONENT
Steve Morison always used to score against me. I actually went on tour to Botswana with him years ago with Middlesex Wanderers. He’d do nothing all game and then pop up to score. And he’d never pull out of a 50-50.
In that sense, though, the worst one was James Walshaw. We were up against Guiseley, last game of the season, 2-2 with nothing to play for. I could see him coming towards me and I was thinking ‘Wally, come on, don’t do it’.
But he just launched himself. I did him, he did me, and we ended up taking each other out like something out of a tag team match.
We signed him that summer and it was exactly the same in training. He was a horrible, horrible player. You’d be defending corners and you’d see him following their lad, elbowing him in the head. Once, away at Hednesford, he headbutted the centre-half.
You’d see a lad lying on the floor and find out later that Wally had given him a right hook. Absolutely nuts.
FAVOURITE PLACE TO GO
I always liked playing at Cambridge. I remember playing there on the final day in 2009 and they needed to score four or five to stop Burton getting promoted.
Graham had us in for special training the day before and we were all thinking ‘What’s the point in this, our season is over’.
But he was determined to do a professional job. We played 4-5-1, made it hard work and drew 0-0.
I think there were about 8,000 there and it was a great atmosphere. It’s a proper football ground and you could feel the history as soon as you walk through the door.
AMBITION
My eldest, Finn, has just been taken on by Man United’s under-8s, so hopefully he’s starting his career now. Helping him will take up a lot of time.
It’ll be nice to have a break. I’m going on holiday in August for the first time in 20-odd years, which will be great. I’m also enjoying Saturdays, though I’m sure I’ll be missing the dressing room soon.
I’d never say never with football but everyone wants coaching badges now and, with running my own business and looking after the kids, it’s hard to find the money and the time. We’ll see.