Alan came to the school in 1974 and stayed until 1981.  Alan, or  'Smudger',   joined Arsenal Football Club in May 1987 for £850,000 from Leicester and made his debut against Liverpool.

He played 345 times for Arsenal and scored 115 goals,  he became a full England International and infamously replaced Gary Lineker in Sweden when manager Graham Taylor ended Gary’s England career.

Honours include:  League Cup Runner Up 1998

                    League Champions 98/99 (Top Goalscorer)

                    League Champions 90/91 (Top Goalscorer)

                    FA Cup Winner 1993

                    League Cup Winner 1993

                    European Cup Winner 1994 (Alan scored the winning goal)

Alan retired through injury  in 1995 and in November of the same year was granted a testimonial match at home against Italian giants Sampdoria. Arsenal won 2-0.  He now appears on Sky Sports as a football analyst.

In an interview for the 1987 edition of The Eagle, Alan said: 

"I regard my years at King's Norton as some of the happiest of my life an I'm sure I will feel no different when I'm older. 

I did quite well academically, passing ten 0 Levels and three A Levels.  The teachers who stand out in my mind are Mr. Burrows for French, Dr. Hosfield for Sport and Mr. Flynn, who taught me German. In fact, I was the only pupil to do this at A Level, so it was really private tuition! In a way it is unfair to single out individual names because all my teachers throughout my seven years were excellent.

One special occasion for me was when I received my full colours. I was still in the fifth year and it was quite unusual for one so young to get his colours, but I was in the First XI Football team and had done quite well. I remember I went home and proudly showed them to my Mom and Dad. I got my Mom to sew the badge on to my blazer straight away. I felt very proud the next day at school.

Of course, King's Norton has a great tradition in Sport and one of the things that made me choose the school when I was eleven was the impressive size of the playing fields. At every opportunity during the day I would be playing football with my mates on the field or in the playground".