Alan Kelly

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“I got the last flight out of Dublin to Manchester, the last train through to Preston and probably the last taxi from the station to home,” laughed Alan Kelly when he told the story of his recruitment by Everton as goalkeeping coach.

“I was actually at the Guinness factory, purely for cultural reasons of course, and the phone went. It was Unsy and I had 12 hours to get to USM Finch Farm so it was very much a case of planes, trains and automobiles but I managed to get back, and was straight into the thick of it. I’ve known Unsy for a long time and he told me what he wanted from me. It was an easy decision for me to make. I’ve got a bit of family history with Everton in terms of my father being goalkeeping coach here in the mid-1980s.”

His father was Alan Kelly Snr, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career himself, winning 47 caps for the Republic of Ireland and doing so well at Preston North End that there is now a stand at Deepdale named in his honour. Alan Snr sadly passed away in 2009 but he would doubtless be delighted that his son is now coaching at Everton.

“My father took us everywhere. When he was the manager at Preston I sat next to him in the dugout and I’d be in and around the dressing room. My old man was a ‘How can I help?’ type of person and he instilled that into us. If a job needed doing, we’d get on and do it and he’d have me chasing balls at Bellefield when he became Everton’s goalkeeper coach. It was child labour I suppose but I loved it!”

Alan’s arrival at Everton isn’t the first time he’s trodden the same path as his father. They both played for Preston and represented their country.