Alan linked to Swindon Town
March 1998
ALAN Flanagan is biding his time as a career in English football looms larger than ever with the news that Swindon Town will be bringing him to a tournament in Belgium in a couple of weeks time.
The Newfield man has already spent time at the Wiltshire club in 1997 and this year with the Robins clearly keen to get him on board.
‘When I was over last year they wanted me to sign but I was on the Leinster schools team in Galway and couldn’t go back over but I had decided to concentrate on my Leaving Certificate first of all.’
Recently he returned to the County Ground and trained with the first team - they have Mark Walters, cx: Liverpool in their ranks these days - and figured in a match against Middlesbro.
As a result the First Division pacesetters then got in touch while QPR are also believed to be taking an interest.
The past few weeks have been hectic, playing with Stella Maris in Dublin, whom he joined from thc Drogheda Boys at the start of the season as well as featuring in Tommy Connolly’s Leinster u/17 team which won the Inter Provincial title recently with a 5-0 hammering of Ulster.
As a prelude to the tournament Tommy decided a game against the Dundalk 1st team at Oriel Park would be an idea and no doubt he was quite pleased when his young side drew 2-2 with thc Lilywhites !
‘It was quite a night. They had nine regulars and two reserves playing for them and I had to make a couple of saves from Peter Withnell and Brian Byrne. That shows their side wasn’t too bad,’ Alan explained.