By Alan Imrie
NEWCASTLE Town Football Club chairman Adrian Howard really is a jack of all trades.
On Saturday morning, Adrian, who is known as Sparky, was sweeping out the Donard Park pavilion, at 8.30am, in advance of the club’s youth and senior team games.
After cleaning out the pavilion, Adrian finished up by collecting litter around Donard Park to ensure that everything was spick and span.
Little did Adrian know that, in the afternoon, he would also have to turn out for the club’s third string for a Newcastle League fixture.
Just as Adrian was finishing up for the morning, he received a phone call from third team manager Alan Imrie advising him of a late cry off that was leaving the team a player short and asked him if he would be substitute, and would only play in the event of an injury.
Most football people would shrug their shoulders and say, “that happens every Saturday. what’s the big deal?”
However, what is different about this story, is that Howard made his club debut from the substitutes bench and scored two goals.
Manager Alan Imrie takes up the story.
“Unfortunately, I had a player cry off late on Saturday morning, and I was already struggling to get a team because the firsts and seconds also had a number of players unavailable.
“I rang Sparky and asked if he would be a substitute for me, and he said he would, with the proviso that he would only play if someone was injured,” said Alan.
“Little did we both know, that he would have to come on and would score twice in the last ten minutes, which has to be some sort of a record!
“I certainly can’t think of any other football club chairmen coming on as substitute and scoring twice on their debut!”, added Alan.
