Alan Meckler Quotes

So I did in fact spend two and a half years in the Middlesbrough car park practising skills. But if you spend four or five or six hours a day practising, you get better.

The main thing I do now is I coach kids, and all of these stories along the way are based in reality.

And I think they loved me because I loved being part of their team, you know, and I quite often say to kids, that I was the worst player in the world`s best football team - and that was good enough for me.

We were having a trial game against Leeds, and Jack Charlton was the boss of Middlesbrough at the time.

I`ve always had an inquisitive mind about everything from flowers to television sets to motor cars. Always pulled them apart - couldn`t put `em back, but always extremely interested in how things work.

I have a real affinity with Ireland and Dublin and the Irish, and I`m your greatest fan whenever there`s a World Cup or European Championships on.

So for a year I spent all my time hiding from Jack Charlton in the car park practising my skills.

It`s strange, it`s a British Inventor of the Year and I`m Australian, but I`ve been here for 25 years, so I guess I`m sort of qualified.

OK, the wonderful thing about soccer is, a football is a perfectly round object, and it doesn`t make mistakes. The player using it makes mistakes. And the more you use it, the less mistakes you make.

Our football program is bigger than any one person.

You know, I was crap. But I had the commitment, and I had the understanding, that the basis of football is skill on the ball, and if you spend the time with it, you`re gonna reap the rewards.

Now Jack Charlton wasn`t wrong, I was a bad footballer.