Alf Langley (February 13th,1957 - March 1st 2001)

A children's park was opened recently at the bottom of Crocus Street, L5 on land bordering Commercial Road. The park was made possible by a collaboration between Flower Streets Residents Association, groundwork Trust and North Liverpool Partnership. It's a lovely facility featuring a safety surface play area with a slide, roundabout, playtrain and climbing frames which I am sure will be enjoyed enormously by the children of the area in the years to come.

The park has been named the ALF LANGLEY PLAY AREA, dedicated to the memory of a man who spent years working with the children and young people, from both sides of Stanley Road, as a volunteer in Kirkdale Community Centre, 'The Gordon'. Alf first went to the Gordon in 1991 for a meeting of the Football Arts Initiative, which he later, and to his death was chairman of. He liked the place so much he stayed till 1999! Firstly, as a volunteer playworker, giving his time and energy for children on the playschemes and Junior Clubs, but also as a youth worker, scenery maker for plays, doorman for dance shows and anything else he was asked to help with.

Alf is known throughout the city (and nationally) for his artwork and particularly the banners he created and worked on, like the LFC Centenary banner, the Billoggs banner which celebrated the people of the old tenements or the Shankly banner, created to mark the closing of the LFC Kop standing terrace, and incidentally was so big it filled the bottom hall of the Gordon. To Alf's eternal credit it was recently nominated as the greatest banner ever seen at Anfield.

For most people young or old, Alf will be best known for his warm friendly manner and the time he spent helping them put there leisure time to good use. Many a child has taken home a drawing, a Christmas card, a plaster model of your hand, a valentines poem or another artistic creation, aided and assisted by Alf. A lot more children could tell you of going on a minibus trip (Freshfields?), a day trip (Safari Park?) a residential (Bakewell or Colomendy?) but perhaps the strongest memories of Alf will be invoked by those who went with him on the annual football trip to Crawley for the Worth Park Rangers Hillsborough Memorial Tournament. This is reflected in the Play Area train being named 'Alf's Crawley Express', a nice touch.

It is no exaggeration to say Alf was a friend to hundreds of children, young people, their parents and other adults in the area and he will be remembered fondly by them all. Given that Alf dedicated so much of his time making children happy, it is most appropriate that his name and memory should be perpetuated through the children's Play Area because Alf believed that to make a child smile is the nicest thing it is possible to do.

I'm sure the Alf Langley Play Area will make many children (and parents) smile many times in the years to come, a lovely tribute to a lovely man.

On behalf of his wife, Marie and her family, his mother Edna and her family and all his friends I pass on our sincere thanks to the Groundwork Trust and the Flower Streets Residents (especially Chris & Marie) for the time and effort they put into the project and particularly for the lovely day, April 11th 2001, when the Play Area was officially opened.

Peter Carney
We come as a pair, Alf.
Go out as an apple.

On the day of Alf's death, a South Yorkshire Policeman received £30,000 in compensation for PTSD - Justice My Arse was written by Pete in the days following.