‘I want to win the PSL’
KICK OFF: Who were your early influences in the game and where did you play?
Alan Koch: My dad, Ron, played when I was very young. He was in the semiprofessional era at Clyde-Pinelands in Cape Town, and Chiltern and Stella in Durban. Some of my first memories are watching him play and being mesmerised by him and the game, and so I fell in love with the sport at a very young age. I was six years old when I played for Chiltern, and then I went over to Westville, where I started playing for the first team when I was 16 years old. My first professional team was Reservoir Hills United in the old OK League, which is now the GladAfrica Championship. I signed there when I was 17, but I only played two games for them before I tore my ACL [anterior cruciate ligament]. I got myself back, though it did take some time. I was chosen for the Southern KwaZulu-Natal side that played in the Transnet Cup. We went and won it with Gordon Igesund as our coach. I used that to get myself over to Europe.
You went to play in Germany, then the United States and finally Ireland, where your career was cut short …
Yes, I played for Wattenscheid 09 and Bayer Uerdingen in Bundesliga II, but then found myself playing at the level that was probably