The Alan Lambden Story ...

We published this story a few weeks ago on Facebook and you many have missed it on that platform so will give it an outing here. At the time of the county final we published a few stories about former Mullingar Shamrocks players and their whereabouts at the time. The Alan Lambden story was held back at the time in order to give it a bit more profile at a quieter time. In 2000 Alan was the last player (the last player ever?) to captain Westmeath to a Leinster minor title when Dublin were defeated on 20 July 2000 in Croke Park. Dónal O'Donoghue was also a member of that successful Westmeath team. Mayo defeated Westmeath in the All-Ireland semi-final in a replayed match in Carrick-on-Shannon. The following day Alan played a key-role when Mullingar Shamrocks defeated Moate All-Whites in a winner take all senior championship match in Cusack Park. Alan selected at corner-forward dropped deep into defence and his ability to read the game was central to the Shamrocks victory as he cut off the supply to Moate's Ger Heavin. The victory qualified Shamrocks for the knockout stages of the championship and on 5 November Tyrrellspass were defeated to win the club's tenth county title. As a student at Mullingar Community College (he was granted refugee status from St Mary's in 1999) Alan was also a member of the Westmeath Vocational Schools team that won the Leinster and All-Ireland football titles in 2000 as a member of a team that also included Paddy Dowdall (playing at corner-forward with the freedom to roam the field), Brendan Murtagh, Kieran Kilmurray and some that went on to star for Roscommon later in their football career. Alan played some superb football for Mullingar Shamrocks especially in 2004 when himself and Darren Moore were selected on the Westmeath team of the Year for their excellence during the championship that year. Anyway, it's time to let Alan tell his story 'I left Mullingar in 2006 to take up a full time job opportunity in the Western Australia desert on an iron ore mine as a junior geologist. At the time the mining industry was booming and they would hire any riff-raff with a geology degree! I worked there for two years before moving to Vancouver, Canada and secured a job working in the mountainous Yukon Territory on an exploration gold camp where access was only by helicopter. The job was a four weeks on/one week off set-up allowing me to live in Vancouver on my time off. In 2010, I worked in Northern Ontario in the Canadian deep freeze for three years on an underground gold mine, this time 4 weeks on/2 weeks off. The mine was located under a lake, a half kilometer underground. The winters were long, cold (-50C) and dark and the northern lights were regularly seen. These guys sponsored me for three years which ultimately led me to staying in Canada and eventually securing my permanent residency. In 2013, I completed my M.Sc at Queen's University in Kingston Ontario in Applied Geology. This is where I met my current boss who was teaching a resource estimation course in the university at the time. He formed an exploration company and we picked up a paleoplacer (like the lads panning for gold in Alaska, only formed 2 billion years ago and now a solid rock) gold deposit in Pará State in Brazil. I'm now based in Toronto, Ontario, flying to Brazil a couple of times a year to spend about a month in the rainforest developing the gold project to the next stage. The long-term back injury I picked up playing GAA meant I could never really go back playing football but I still play soccer regularly. I played for two years at a fairly high standard with Toronto Celtic FC before stepping down a couple of leagues last year.'