There was plenty of pressure on young Alan Curtis to run with the oval ball, rather than kick a round one. Football was discouraged in the school playground and at grammar school, down the Rhondda Valley, rugby was the choice of the sport by law. Stronger influences prevailed, however: his dad was a decent footballer and uncle Roy Paul had captained Manchester City to victory in the 1956 FA Cup Final. By the age of 13, Alan was being invited to Old Trafford for a trial. That didn’t work out but, a year later, the budding young outside-half, in the Barry John mold, was able to kick rugby into touch and concentrate on football and education.

Alan emulated Uncle Roy by leaving Pentre to play for Swansea – and then 35 times for Wales, twice more than his uncle.

An injury crisis prompted Swansea to push their stylish wide-player upfront, to such effect that he scored 32 league goals, only one of them a penalty, in season 1977-78. 

Leeds United, in post-Revie decline, secured his transfer for a club-record £370,000. A bright start at Elland Road was marred by a career-threatening cruciate ligament injury, sustained in a 50:50 challenge with Peter Shilton. When he recovered, after being sidelined for eight months, things had moved on. Manager Jimmy Adamson had been sacked – along with his assistant, Dave Merrington – and replaced by Allan Clarke. Alan was happy to be repatriated with John Toshack’s Swansea, by now in the top flight. Swansea’s two-season flirtation with First Division football overstretched their finances – it “set them back 20 years”, Alan reckons – and he became a fire-sale casualty.

Lawrie McMenemy, who had first tried to sign Curtis eight years earlier, now got his man for a knock-down £80,000.

Alan pulled a hamstring four games into his Saints career and replacement, Steve Moran, scored a hatful of goals in a free-scoring side that stormed to the FA Cup semi-final. An unfit Steve Williams not only started the game against Everton but played all 120 minutes of it. The inquest continues as to who should have worn No.4 that day. Alan Curtis and Ivan Golac are the main contenders.

A disappointed Curtis was “really happy”, the following season when the manager played him in central midfield. But then McMenemy departed for Sunderland. Chris Nicholl bought Glenn Cockerill, who immediately replaced Alan. After a loan spell at Stoke, he joined Cardiff City. “When they played Swansea,” Alan recalls, he “got booed by both sets of fans.” He then wound down his League career with a third spell at The Vetch. After this, he played at various levels of Welsh football, including two spells at Barry Town, the first of them in the Southern League.

Then, in 1993, he answered the fourth call from Swansea, now as their Community Officer. Having turned out for the local side, Mumbles Rangers, for a while and switched to coaching roles at the Vetch, he next had a spell managing the Wales Under-21 side, before he became an assistant to Roberto Martinez at the club’s new home, the Liberty Stadium. And he has been serving Swansea ever since either coaching, or taking over the reins on a caretaker basis, or more recently as the manager of loan players.