Corsham Print
Wiltshire Senior League
Purton FC News - Season 2017-18
In an era when loyalty to one club is often hard to find it is refreshing to report that Alan Eastwood is now in his 45th season at Purton Football Club. Alan joined as a player back in 1972 and has had just about every role in the club since and is now the recognised face of Purton Football Club to everyone in Wiltshire and beyond.

Alan’s match day programmes for Purton are renowned for the impressive historical information and it was true to form that a request for some missing goal scorer information resulted in all the goal scorers going back to 1972-73 being provided within a few hours. This enabled the Purton “all-time” record to be fully completed for the period of the existence of the Wiltshire Senior League.

This “all-time record” can be downloaded from the website on the Purton club page which will be updated each week .

With the Wiltshire County League (the original name of the Wiltshire Senior League) coming into existence in 1976-77 following the amalgamation of the Wiltshire Combination and Wiltshire League, our list omits the goal scorers from those early years of Alan’s tenure at Purton but having been provided with the information and seeing that it included Alan himself it is only right that that information is featured here.

Back in the1970’s the Purton goal machine was a certain Allan Coole who finished top scorer seven out of eight of those first years of Alan’s time at Purton. Unfortunately, due to a serious illness Coole missed the 1974-75 season and Alan was himself top scorer that season with 24 goals.  In those seven seasons when Coole topped the Purton goal scoring chart he bagged an impressive 191 goals (this total also excludes certain supplemental cup competitions).

Coole continued to score Purton's goals in the early years of the new Wiltshire County League. He was finally knocked off top spot by a young striker called Mark Collier who would go on to be the top scorer during Alan’s 45 season’s at Purton. Coole did, however, regain the Purton Golden Boot in 1982-83 but Collier eventually went on to be Purton top scorer for 10 of Alan’s 45 years at the club. Collier's goals came during a period which saw Purton secure promotion to the Hellenic League and he is now the successful manager at Chippenham Town and no doubt looks back fondly to his playing days at the Red House.

The record for those early years before the formation of our league were:
1972 - 73  Allan Coole 29
1973 - 74  Allan Coole 32
1974 - 75  Alan Eastwood 24
1975 - 76  Allan Coole 33

Alan also provided us with the all-time top scorers in all competitions over his 45 season period at the club. This includes not only games in the leagues and league and FA knockout competitions that Purton First Team, Reserve Team and Third team played, but also games in the Fairford Hospital Cup and Arthur Shipway Cup competitions.

The top 10 who have all scored over 100 goals for the club reads as follows:

1.    Mark Collier 289
2.    Allan Coole 257
3.    Robert Preddy 232
4.    Mark Cutter 219
5.    Ian Martin 178
6.    Steve Tucker 147
7.    Alan Eastwood  125
8.    Peter Hammond 115
9.    Mark Bissett 110
10.  Richard Watkins 101

A big thank you to Alan for providing this information for the webiste.If other clubs would like similar stories included on the website please contact either Jim Thorn or Mark Smedley.
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