Alan Thompson - Midfielder Date of Birth: December 22, 1973 Birthplace: Newcastle Nationality: English Height: 1.83m/6' Previous Clubs: Bolton, Newcastle Joined Villa: June 5, 1998 Acquisition Price: £4.5 million Debut: July 28, 1998 (Wycombe (a) (friendly)) Left Villa (for): July 2000 (Celtic (Scotland)) Selling Price: £3,3 million

Alan Thompson started his footballing career at Newcastle United, his local cluband he joined the first team from trainee. Bolton then secured his signature for the trifle of £250.000. They soon learned why he was highly rated in Newcastle: his left foot should be bronzed. This is also why Gregory has bought him, as he felt Villa really lacked a left-sided player. Bolton has earned quite a few goals by the hands (feet) of Thompson, including one in the 1995 Coca Cola Cup final.

He was very close to resigning permanently and prematurely when he was involved in a horrible car crash in 1989. Very few skilled physicians thought he would ever play football again, the accident having almost claimed the life of Thompson. However, his high determination and persistance (and skilled doctors) saw him back in action rather quickly.

He signed a five year contract with Villa after John Gregory had fended off stiff competition from Leicester, Everton, Blackburn and particularly Leeds. When he signed, some of his words were "I am a similar type of player to Andy Townsend who had a lot of success at Villa. He maybe is a little bit more aggressive than me and is a good player but I would like to think I've got something to offer - and if I do as well as he has then I will be delighted."

Alan spent two seasons with Aston Villa and was a very influential player in the midfield during his first season. John Gregory chose him for the season's first three or four penalties, but he missed them all, and he didn't take any more penalties for Aston Villa during his spell at the club.

Alan's second season wasn't as good as the first one. As the summer approached, it became evident that Alan was expendable, and he was sold to Celtic in July 2000.

Stats Until the end of his Aston Villa career
Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats include cup games.
Season	Club	Apps	Goals
1998/1999	Aston Villa	0 (10)	2
1999/2000	-//-	15 (1)	0
2000/2001	-//-	26 (4)	5
Villa record		41 (15)	7
Total record		41 (15)	7