Gillingham keeper Alan Julian looking forward to a return to his roots
By Luke Cawdell
Gillingham keeper Alan Julian
heads back to the club where he grew up on Saturday.
Julian, pictured, spent over a
decade at Brentford before getting back into the professional
game with the Gills after a spell at non-league Stevenage.
He still lives near the ground in west
London and will be keen to impress.
"I’’m looking forward to it, although
I don’t know if I’m playing yet," said Julian, who has played nine
successive games since replacing the injured Simon Royce in
December.
"It would be nice to go there. I spent
over 10 years there and know the ground like the back of my hand.
It’s only a few minutes from my house and it would be nice to go
back and play but we’ll see.
"Up until the end I had a good time
and a lot of good memories there, it was a good club. I was unhappy
to leave but that’s football."
Julian, 26, left Brentford in 2005 and
made more than 150 appearances for Stevenage before moving to
Priestfield 18 months ago.
He added: "A lot of people said
to me, ‘don’t go to non-league, try and stay in the league’ but at
the end of the day beggers can’t be choosers.
"I was leaving Brentford and didn’t
have many options. I went to Stevenage and believed in myself that
I could come back."
Thursday, February 04 2010