Giving was Alan Hudson’s specialty.
Smooth as satin, Hudson held court in the Sounders midfield, giving the ball to goal scorers on a record 51 occasions. Moreover, he imparted wisdom to teammates and especially young Americans, and essentially he gave us, the fans of the 80s, a glimpse of what football was to come.
Upon his return to Seattle earlier this month, it was a chance to give back, to give Hudson the acknowledgement, the appreciation and the caring he deserved.
A lot can be learned about people by observing the grace with which they receive kindness and the unreserved nature by which they bestow it. The second week of October was an opportunity to see why Huddy and Sounders Nation are truly special in that regard.
To see the way Sounders alumni rallied to the cause warmed the heart. It was onetime captain Adrian Webster who suggested the homecoming, with former teammates Tommy Jenkins and David Gillett arranging the details of the whirlwind week. Alan Hinton stepped forward to arrange a private fundraising event. Owner/GM Adrian Hanauer and the club came through in a number of ways.
Hudson had not visited Seattle since his 1983 departure. He has faced mounting challenges since being hit by a car in 1997, leaving his body mangled. Recently he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Traveling with Hudson was his good friend, Tony Millard. Gillett retrieved them from the airport and Hudson’s first impression was how Bellevue, his former home, and Seattle had changed. But from a Newcastle vantage point the next morning, Hudson says, “It hit me, looking over this beautiful city, just what I have been missing these last 30 years.”
During his stay, Hudson reconnected with old friends, made new ones (even while awaiting boarding at SeaTac). Some of those friends, new and old, joined him and other alumni for Sounders training at Starfire. The facilities, he immediately pointed out, are a far cry from his days of practices amid racing jet engines at Renton Stadium in his day.
That evening in Bellevue, Sigi Schmid and his staff joined other invitees in swapping stories and posing questions.
There was the tale of him taking aside and speaking with a teenage trialist at Chelsea. Chris Bennett, the trialist, went on to play for Seattle and was Huddy’s teammate in Cleveland.
For Jeff Stock, a Tacoma teen, it meant learning to play “the proper way.” No longer blindly thumping the ball toward the target man, he would now look for a high-percentage, short pass to Hudson. When Frank Barton, a Sounders signing from fourth-division Bournemouth, learned he would be joined “by the great Alan Hudson,” it was like being individually promoted to the Premiership.
Hudson got the last word.
“I wanted to get across the importance of my experience with the young Americans, trying to help them and at the same time build a great team,” Hudson says. He thanked Jimmy Gabriel for taking a chance in acquiring him from Arsenal.
“It was a bold move by Jimmy because my reputation preceded me,” he recalls. “I had to quickly get over it, that I ‘worked hard and played hard,’ and that’s what we built our team on.”
“The greatest move in my life,” he adds, “was joining Seattle Sounders.”
Come match day, he reunited with still more alums at CenturyLink Field. He walked onto the field, imagining his Sounders teams–who played on the same plot of earth under the Kingdome–playing before 50,000-plus in the open air. Then, before the spirited crowd, Hanauer presented him the Golden Scarf. Hudson was nearly overwhelmed.
“I was uplifted and very emotional,” he shares, “and my emotions got stronger (back) at home, when it sank in and I truly inhaled it all. It was the strangest feeling, almost as if I had never left.”
The morning prior to his flight home, Hudson joined Gabriel and Hinton for breakfast.
“To sit down with my two coaches was marvelous. These two blokes are fantastic in very different ways,” notes Hudson. “The perfect scenario back in ’79 would’ve been Alan and Jimmy working together because they are both talented and very astute football men with different ideas. But put them together and you have a very strong cocktail.”
His friend, Millard, says Hudson foretold of the special places and friends awaiting them. “And he was spot on, because the whole trip was special, Millard says. “I have been to many places around the world and Seattle and you lovely people are now up at the top and etched firmly in my heart.
“The trip meant so much to Alan,” He continues, “and it wasn’t just three or four special moments, it was the whole thing.”
For Hudson as he resumes cancer treatments back in London, the rediscovered friendships, the kindnesses ruminate in his mind as he constantly relives those seven days.
“I had the most wonderful time,” he says. “In fact I cried three days, not believing at last I had returned.”
Recalling the coma and multiple fractures he survived 17 years ago, Hudson says there may be a reason for it all. “Apart from seeing my grand-daughter born four years ago, maybe this is why those wonderful surgeons kept me alive. Just maybe?”