Alan Bennett - Walton Baptist Church FC

I was born in 1951 in Chelsea, London and am married to Elsie. We live in Hersham and have three sons (Andy, Chris and Dan), two of whom are now married and we have one Grandson (Samuel). After many years of working for companies in the City, I set up my own one man Computer Consultancy at the start of 1998. I am also qualified as both an F.A Soccer Coach and an LTA Tennis Coach. Sport has always been a large part of my life. In my early teens I passed trials for Chelsea and was a Junior with them for 2 years. However, I lacked self-confidence, and eventually decided not to continue in case I didn’t make it! (my sons think I must have been mad). I also played in the same school team as Alan Hudson, a name familiar to Chelsea fans the wrong side of 50! One of my main claims to fame was being in the school side which won the Chelsea district Cup Final 9-0 when both Alan and I scored hat-tricks. After a season with Walton I know what the opposition felt like! These days I am more of a Manager/Coach than a player, although I did make myself sub once last season! My Christian life began in 1985. I had never been much of a Church goer, mainly weddings, perhaps Easter, never Christmas. In my view, Christians were rather weak people who meant well, but who did not live in the real world. However, I had often wondered ‘Why were we here?’, and ‘There must be more to life that this’. I put my energy into gaining more materialistic things, telling myself things like ‘I must get the latest tennis racket, then I would be satisfied, or I must get a new car or some new clothes, then everything will be all right. However, whenever I got the item in question, it never made any difference, it was like there was a void inside me that I could not fill, and I was back to square one. In 1985 things changed. Elsie had started going to a shoppers creche at Walton Baptist Church, and had even started going to some of the Sunday services there. She asked if I minded her being more involved with this Church, I said that it didn’t bother me - she must have just become a Christian, but I didn’t know what that meant! She was very good, because I remember that she didn’t try to pressurise me into going with her. However, I went along from time to time to see what it was all about. I especially remember one morning when I took one of our children into Sunday school, and stayed with him as he was restless. I was shocked at the forthright teaching of the teachers. These people really believed the Bible! On several other occasions, during the main service, I felt a strange draught sensation down my neck, I thought that someone had left a window open! I later realised that it was the Holy Spirit. About this time, I recognised a friend from Tennis at the same Church. He asked me if I wanted to go to a dinner at the Oatlands Park Hotel, where they had a guest Christian Speaker. I said that I would think about it, hoping that he would forget. However, I saw him again a couple of days before the dinner, and he asked me again. I couldn’t think of a good excuse, so I went. That night (17th September) I asked Jesus to forgive my sins and to come into my life. It was like a veil had been lifted from my mind, I really felt like a different person. Prior that that, whenever I read the bible, it was just words in a book, now those word became alive. Life hasn’t become a bed of roses, and I’m certainly not perfect - far from it. But life now has real meaning. Being a Christian is definitely not the easy option, but it’s the most important decision I have ever made. It gives you freedom in the knowledge that wherever you go, and whatever you do, God is there with you, and whether you win or lose, come first or last he is still there and his love never changes.

Mark Blythe, Molesey Community Church FC

I was born in Australia to English Parents back in 1959, I have tended to be Australian during the cricket season and English at other times since then! I have a very patient wife, Lesley, three sons, three step-kids and two step-grandchildren, mightily blessed! At 2 my Pommie parents escaped Australia & I was raised near Middlesbrough. I was a sport fanatic, represented my school at everything & County at 3 sports. I was a Boro season ticket holder and played in 3 footy matches some weekends, what a life! I went regularly to Church, yes every Christmas Eve without fail to keep my Mother company after my parents divorced! That was it, no other churchy input and that was more than enough for me. I went to Uni at 18 to do PE, coached soccer in USA and did the first London Marathon in 1981. I married a Catholic lady at 24, but I fought against attending Church throughout a ten-year marriage that ended in divorce, mainly due to my selfishness I have to admit. I was happily single, when I met a gorgeous woman. Disappointingly I soon learnt that she was a Christian. I started asking questions about her faith. She didn’t push it on me as we started a relationship, which was just as well cos to me it was real bad news! Six months later on a business trip back to Australia, some friends invited me to their Church, they couldn’t believe it when I said I would go, and I was equally surprised! I didn’t know why all of a sudden I wanted to go but I just felt drawn. During the meeting the leader invited new people down to the front, for some reason I went. There was a reading on a big overhead screen, I started reading it and for some reason my eyes filled up with tears. Being a tough northerner I tried to stem the flow but couldn’t, fortunately I was facing the front wall! I felt an amazing warm sensation inside that I now know to be the Holy Spirit, along with the shock of finding that God really existed and could be felt in a tangible way, I had an amazing inner peace. To make it so I had to believe God told my son that Dad had become a Christian. So when I rang England from Australia they already knew!! Wow, that made me realize that there was something real about this! The spirit changed my life dramatically, I no longer do anything to make more money. The saddest thing about becoming a Christian late was realising that I wasted 35 years not listening to all the people who tried to tell me that it was Good News, the people I labelled “Boring Bible Bashers” as I went off to play football. One of the best things was realising that I could still love my football, support Boro and be a Christian! I was amazed that it doesn’t hurt and I am just so grateful that I found all this out before it was too late! Since that day, God has healed my back and answered many prayers. I want to spend eternity in heaven with all my friends and I want them to experience God’s Love that is just amazing. If folks actually did an Alpha course or quizzed a Christian friend with all their deepest questions I am convinced that most would choose to follow Jesus. Historians don’t deny that Jesus existed so why should you? And if he did exist and was who he claimed to be maybe it’s worth reading what he had to say? Mark’s Gospel in the New Testament is a great place to start, reading it knowing it is historical truth changed my views on it greatly! That water into wine thing was quite impressive and coming back to life was pretty good too! Do you have an open mind? What if….. what if that nagging wonder at the back of your mind is actually true? I believe nothing on earth can give you as much lasting peace and enjoyment as realising that there is a God who loves you, yes you. He gave you free will to choose Him, that is love, He is ready and waiting … will you go for it? Love Molesey Community Church FC, Love Boro & Love Jesus – strange but true!

Tony Kelly, Founder Molesey Community Church FC

I guess I’m not the sort of guy people expect to lead the prayers at the start of a football match. Well it’s fair to say that it hasn’t always been that way. I was the youngest child of Irish immigrants to England (there were six kids - no guesses as to which religious leaning) brought up in a suburb of Manchester called Wythenshawe. Now Wythenshawe is definitely not Molesey. It is one of the largest Council estates in Europe and you can spot the posh people there because they are the ones who could afford iron bar grills for their windows. Dad was a bricklayer’s mate and with six kids in tow had to work really hard to make ends meet. The holiday treat each year was a day trip to Blackpool, an hour in the fun house and a stick of rock for the bus journey back home. Unfortunately, the old man had to work too hard and he suffered a massive heart attack which killed him when I was just six years old. If life had been fairly tough up until then, it had in no way prepared me for the way it was about to be. I very quickly became a six year old going on twenty as Mum had to go out to work to support us all. It really was like the “Dickens’ workhouse”. My eldest brothers and sisters were very sensible and as soon as they reached late teens left home. Despite all of this we were all incredibly happy as the events pulled the family closer together and there was a strong sense of unity amongst us, even if it was taking it in turns for the others to practice beating the hell out of me. The Catholic church rallied round my mum at this time and helped us all enormously. We thought we were having it bad, but it was nothing compared to what she was going through and it was very clear to me as a nipper that her faith got her through these hard times. The church also sent me on camps, give me a reasonable education, ran my football club and all I had to do in return was enjoy the comic delights of being an altar boy for a short while. Surprisingly, I did rather well at school and managed to pass the 11 plus and get to Grammar school. The Grammar school was very carefully chosen. It had to be far enough away to mean I got a free bus pass and they had to give free meals to the poorer kids. I even did well here, despite blokes dressed in cassocks trying to cane you every three minutes for not being able to conjucate the latin verb “amare”. They definitely wouldn’t get away with that today (well not without the Sun having something to print about it). However, in true traditional family fashion, I was ready to leave at sixteen and join the big, bad, working world and much to everyone’s delight including my own I even had some qualifications to dish out at the appropriate time. It’s fair to say at this point that God was not high on my agenda, in fact he wasn’t on it at all. Nothing came free in life and no one other than yourself was going to do anything for you. And besides, God (George Best) had already left United by this stage. My interests were pretty limited, football, rugby league, drinking, more drinking and even more drinking. Women were a bit of a distraction, but only when the bar was shut and definitely not when with the lads at a big game. I also found work a bit of a fag and convinced the Government to give me a full grant to go and study at college for a further three years. Here I majored in sport, minored in drinking and took a free ninth in girls. In the minutes that were left (of which there weren’t many) I got involved in high jinks (hence the shape of the nose- clearly I needed to spend more time practising my jab and ducking). Occasionally and only occasionally I’d do some economics studying. University was definitely not hard work and I whilst I was there I happened to meet somebody who was to change my life. Her name was Judith. She was a pretty, dainty, shy thing, (just like me) who took a real shine to me. I, in true laddish style, continued to treat her the way I treated all other women- badly. However, her persistence wore me down such by the end of my time at college, it was me who was doing all the chasing. We fell in love and were married once Judith had finished her course at the ripe old age of 22. By this time, I was working in London and climbing up the corporate ladder. I was incredibly ambitious and was driven by work. Judith on the other hand was looking for the deeper meaning to life and had started attending a local church in Molesey. Somewhat divergent paths and not the best thing for our young marriage. I was in competition for Judith’s time with the church and some soppy emotional inner feeling she had about God. Needless to say there was a lot of friction between us and I started to dislike anything or anybody who had anything to do with the church. This coupled with miserable weekends with my bad temper when United lost (which happened quite frequently in the early 80’s) meant something had to give. I had been brought up with God, but that was for children and not for the modern twentieth century man. Besides it was boring being so good. As far as I was concerned, it was just a story, but Judith challenged me to come to some of the church’s meetings where they were having some visiting guest speakers with a view to making up my mind for myself. Well, I went to the church and on one of the nights there was a guy speaking who didn’t know me from Adam. Remarkably, he was speaking on this occasion about someone in the hall who he did not know, but related some of this person’s personal life and said that Jesus wanted to meet them that very night. Well the person he was talking about was me. At first, I was shocked, then confused and then listened more intently to what he had to say. He talked about someone who gave up everything for me (including his life), someone who knew everything about me, and who expected nothing in return. The Jesus he talked about was not the one I knew in the books, but someone who I could speak to daily and have like any other normal friend. Unlike any other friend though, he wasn’t going to let me down and hurt me even if I didn’t always come up with my end of the bargain. When the guy asked for anyone in the hall to step forward if they thought his talk had spoken to them, I found myself on my feet and moving to the front. If my mates could have seen me at that moment, my street cred would have been out the window and I would have died. Amazingly, by the end of the evening I was so convinced by what I heard, I had decided to give this Jesus a go. I’d like to be able to say I became a saint overnight, but alas that isn’t true. Things did change more subtly though. My marriage improved dramatically and I can honestly say has got better every day since that time. Even my temper got better. I was never going to be on a soap box and preaching about what Jesus could do for other people, but instead was going to live out what I believed in my every day actions. God was good to me, but its fair to say there were still parts of my life which were mine and not for the sharing. The personal ambition to be successful at work was very much in evidence and United was still incredibly important and I still believed it had to be down to me to do everything. They say God works in mysterious ways and he did for me. I was made the chief executive of the UK’s leading film production and distribution company at the age of 28. I thought this was the route to the top. Judith didn’t want me to take the job as she thought I was taking it for all the wrong reasons. Needless to say the whole episode was a disaster. The Company hit one crisis after another all of which had been birthed prior to my joining the company. I was working twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year. Hope was always just around the next corner and when I sold the Company to Polygram, they even reneged on the deal on the day it was due to close. To cut a long story short, the company went bust, leaving me broke not having been paid for over six months, my CV in shreds and my self esteem shot to pieces. I was also somewhat worried about what to do next as Judith was expecting our second child and all my savings had gone on supporting us over the last few months. I needed time to think and so I booked a holiday on the credit cards to the Canary Islands. It so happened some of our friends and family would be out there at the same time. Well my career may have ended, but at least United were about to win their first championship for twenty five years. Whilst we were on holiday United lost every game only to be pipped by Leeds and on the last day of the holiday Leeds were crowned Champions. Time obviously to get drunk. That night I went out and was in no fit state to drive back to the apartment. I decided to walk back. I pushed Joe in the baby trolley whilst Judith waddled alongside me. The next thing I remember is Judith screaming. Now I know I might have been rude during the course of the evening, but definitely not that bad. As I turned to see why Judith was so upset with me a flash of reflected light off steel caught my eye. All was suddenly very clear. A Spanish drug addict had a twelve inch fishing knife at my throat demanding money (or at least that’s what I think he was asking for). The guy took the last cash to my name I had. Fortunately that’s all he took, he got the money and ran, probably more scared than me. The next day, reality dawned, I had no money, no job, the credit cards at the limit, United were losers yet again, my wife was pregnant and for the first time ever I felt out of control and didn’t know what to do. My ethos of you only get what you work for seemed hopelessly wrong as I had worked really hard and all I had to show for it was less than nothing. Judith suggested praying about the situation and tried to comfort me in saying that God would provide for us. My sarcastic response of “sure that will really help” certainly didn’t do her any favours either. However, we did pray about it and to my amazement I no longer felt worried. In fact I suspected my God had taught me a number of lessons. I now knew he was in control, not me. He wanted to be in every part of my life not just some of it and as daft as it might seem, prayer really worked. I returned to England and there was a message on the answerphone from someone I hadn’t seen for over five years asking if I could help their company out on a part time basis. This paid enough for us to get by and allowed me more time at home to be with my new young family. It even motivated me to start doing things for people less fortunate than me. Believe it or not, United losing no longer ruined the weekends and they even went on to win the championship the next year. What a turn around and what a change in me! Letting Jesus into my life has given me a sense of purpose and hope, but more than anything it has taken the burden of worries away from me. There are still hard times, but I know for sure he can deal with them better than I can worrying about them. It has made my relationships deeper and more fulfilling and I think it has improved me as a person. I know he still has a lot to improve and change in me, and that I will in all probability slip backwards, but I have never been so excited about the future. I’ve also seen my God change lots of other peoples lives over the last years and I know if everyone lived and loved like Jesus did, then maybe the earth we live in might just be like heaven.