Coming late to soccer from Gaelic football, Cork-born Alan Bennett made sufficient progress at his home-town club to taste European football against the likes of Red Star Belgrade and Sparta Prague and to be capped at U-21 level. Yet he would be 25 before Reading, going well in the Premiership, brought him to England in January 2007.

He would win two full caps on the Republic’s close-season trip to the USA, but had still not played for the Royals when they loaned him to Southampton, come August, as the Saints prepared for their third Championship season. Arriving at St Mary’s on the eve of the season’s kick-off, Alan went straight into the starting line-up at centre-back, before he could even master his team-mates’ names. It was, as he puts it, “a torrid time”, as the team went down 4-1 at home to Palace and crashed out of the Carling Cup, two days later, at Peterborough.

By the end of the week, George Burley had brought in Wayne Thomas and Alan was pretty much out of contention until he had an ever-present December. Having welcomed Burley’s assurance that he was aiming to extend his six-month loan, Alan was surprised to be whisked back to Reading and very soon loaned out again, to Brentford. Over the next four seasons, he enjoyed some good times in League One, topping that division with the Bees in 2008-09; winning promotion with Wycombe in 2011 (although he was injured for much of their run); and captaining Cheltenham in 51 of their 53 matches in 2011-12, that included an FA Cup exit at Tottenham – his personal highlight – and play-off defeat at Wembley.

Alan’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent a few minutes before the January 2013 transfer window closed. He was therefore a free agent and able to sign for AFC Wimbledon a couple of days later. In September 2019 after another five seasons with Cork he was awarded a testimonial, but he had been busy off the pitch too. In 2014 he had graduated from Stafford University with a degree in sports journalism and then followed that by gaining a Masters in personal and management coaching from Cork University in 2019.