Alan Long has been the voice of Lincoln City FC since August 12, 1997.
He celebrated 1,000 games as the LNER Stadium’s PA announcer on New Year’s Day in the League One game against Rotherham United.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ve pretty much stayed the same throughout. I came up with a little sheet that I still use to this day that has all the information on it that I need, and that’s it. I haven’t really changed since day one, really not that much.”
But, it was not something the 66-year-old planned.
The Devonshire-born part-time Supporter Liaison Officer moved to Lincoln in 1979, posted to RAF Digby.
He explained: “My wife, a couple of weeks after we moved here, went to go shoe shopping. So as with all blokes, she went shoe shopping. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll take in a football match’, because I used to go to watch Exeter City with my dad.
“I went to Sincil Bank, met a couple of fellas, watched the game, and they said: ‘We’re at home again on Tuesday, are you coming again? And that was it.”
Finding his football club might have been a serendipitous story, but it pales in comparison to the unlikely way he became the PA announcer.
All the way back in 1996, Alan was the chairman of the supporter’s club, and was asked by the Imps’ CEO Gerry Lonsdale to try and find a new PA announcer.
He could not, and the rest was history.
“He said, ‘Well, the trouble is, we need one for next Saturday’, or whatever it was. So, I said, ‘Well, I used to do mobile discos when I was younger, so I’ll do it.’
“I thought no more of it. And in the meantime, Gerry said, ‘Well, we’ll try and find somebody.’ Of course, they never did. And I just kept coming in.
“It was all a bit Heath Robinson, if I’m being honest with you,” Alan recalled between sips of his cappuccino.
These days Alan nestles himself in the press box of the LNER Stadium, but it was not always that way.
He said: “I actually started off in my season ticket seat, and I had the microphone under the seat. So if we scored a goal, I’m jumping up and down like a fan and then I pick the microphone up and shout out the goalscorer.”
At the end of Alan’s first season as the PA announcer, the Imps won promotion. A good luck charm, perhaps. But, it has not always been plain sailing.
Lincoln City might now be a consolidated League One side, fighting for play-off contention, though they were once languishing in non-league.
Alan said: “When we got relegated into the National League, back in whenever it was, I’ve tried to block it out! People didn’t really want to leave.
“I had the safety officer saying to me, you’ve got to get them out of the stadium. So, I’m walking around the side of the pitch and saying, ‘Have a good summer’. ‘We’ll be back’. ‘We’ll be back, don’t worry’. And people are crying.”
He summed up his achievement: “I’m proud to have done it. Hopefully it’s not been too bad, and I’ll carry on as long as possible, because I love it.”
“It just becomes part of your DNA. One day when the club will probably say, I think it’s time we moved on, or I might not be able to physically walk up to the press box anymore. It will be really weird going to a match and just sitting there watching, because I haven’t done that since 1996.”
The role has given Alan the chance to do some otherwise impossible things, from interviewing a World Cup winner to changing in the Shirley Bassey suite.
The latter game in the 2003 play-off final, when Lincoln lost to Bournemouth at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. He announced the City team before the big game, in front of more than 30,000.
“We went out on the pitch and I can remember standing there, and [then manager] Keith Alexander came out… he’s just looking around, and he said, ‘Take this in, mate, take this in.’ I’m filling up now, telling you about it because it was just a surreal moment.”
The other came in a night of mixed emotion.
“Probably the strangest and most poignant game I ever did. We played Hereford on a Friday night just after Keith passed away. We’d planned to do a tribute, and for some reason best known to FIFA, the World Cup came to the stadium that night.”
The famous Jules Rimet Trophy was on a world tour, heading to Paris. It made a pit-stop in Lincolnshire, flown in on a helicopter. And, with it came one of England’s 1996 World Cup heroes, Martin Peters.
“So they introduced me to Martin Peters, and honestly, as God’s my witness, just like I’m sat here talking to you, I’m talking to Martin Peters, the man who scored a goal in the World Cup final.”
Emily Rooke, of the Lady Imps Supporters Association, is just one of Alan’s fans.
“Alan is the voice of Lincoln City. Players and managers come and go, but Alan has been ever present,” she said.
Back with Alan, he said: “I can be doing a ground tour, and somebody who’s under 30 will say to me, you’re the only person I’ve ever heard read the teams at and then you suddenly start to feel very old, but it’s nice as well.
“And all that came from me saying I’ll do the PA, because if I said no, I’d still be just a fan.”
What has happened since Alan Long got the gig?
Alan Long has been at Lincoln City since 1997, and has seen…
Lincoln City Managers: 17
Lincoln City Promotions: 3
Lincoln City Relegations: 2
Lincoln City EFL Trophies: 1
Back on August 12, 1997:
Alan has seen a lot since he took over the microphone at the LNER Stadium, but what was happening back then?
UK Number One: “Men in Black” by Will Smith
One day later, American animated satirical sitcom ‘South Park’ is released for the very first time.