Our popular Player Profile series is back and Nostell Miners Welfare’s Alex Haigh is the third featured player of the new campaign.
Name
Alex Haigh
Current Club
Nostell Miners Welfare
Position
Centre-Back
Age
22
Day Job
Sports Activator at Wakefield College
Best Mate in Football
Matty Owens, spend a lot of time with Matty away from football so I’d have to say him! Although I’ve met some great football because of football!
Team You Support
Leeds United
Football Idol
Bit of an unlikely one but Jermanie Beckford, he was the main man at Leeds when I first started going to Elland Road regularly.
Biggest influence on football career
My Dad, he’s coached me ever since I was in the U7’s and always tells me how it is good or bad and that’s really helped me both on and off the field.
Career Highlight
Yet to win anything in Non League so got to be my debut for Nostell, worked really hard to earn the opportunity so was a nice moment when it came along. We won the U19’s cup final too a few years ago now and to see 8+ players from that side still playing together for Nostell and in the NCEL is a real credit to us all as players and Ian (Walker) as a coach for getting us all to this point!
Lowest moment in football
Probably have to say the last 18 months to 2 years! Not playing for so long and then when we were finally back being so stop start has been an absolute nightmare, fingers crossed we can get a full season again!
Biggest regret in football
Wouldn’t say I have any obvious regrets to be honest! Happy with where I find myself in my football career at the minute and wouldn’t of changed any of my experiences along the way so far!
Funniest moment in football
I played in a game where one of the lads scored an own goal from 10 yards inside the opposition’s half when I was at Robin Hood! Still baffles me to this day how he managed to put one top bins from that far away.
First semi-professional manager
Simon Houghton/Jason Dodsworth (Nostell MW)
Non League Debut
First minutes was first game of the 18/19 season away at Parkgate, we won 3-0 I think. First start was at right back away at Ollerton a couple months later.
First Red Card in Non League
Luckily not been sent off yet but come awfully close at North Ferriby last year though.
First and Best Non League Goal
Don’t score many…. My first was in a pre season game against Garforth a few years back, was nice to get my first goal at that level against a good side like Garforth!
What do you want to achieve in football in the future?
On a personal level i’d love to play at the highest level I can and make a name for myself, but we’ve got a great group at Nostell too so I’d love to win something with all the boys as soon as possible!
Favourite Non League Ground
North Ferriby!
If you want to take part in our weekly Player Profile, get in touch via social media, either on Facebook or Twitter.
Take a look at our previous Player Profiles HERE
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams.
Our work is playing an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.
