Glen Porter

DOB: 1st January 0001

Position: Goalkeeper

Season of first appearance: 1984/85

Season of last appearance: 1986/87

Full Appearances: 16

Substitute: 0

Goals: 0

Clean Sheets: 4

Also played for:

Ramsgate.

Player Profile:

Ginger-haired keeper who joined Thanet United from local football for the 1984/85 season and played regularly for the reserves during the campaign.

Glen also made two first-team appearances, making his debut in a Eastern Floodlight Cup tie at Hastings on 7.3.85. United lost the game 2-1. Glen also played as Thanet lost 2-0 at home to Bishop's Stortford in the 2nd Leg of the Eastern Floodlight Cup Final on 9.5.85. He replaced the injured Joe Radford and proved to be "an able deputy" in the eyes of the Thanet Times. The paper said that Glen "generally displayed a safe pair of hands" and he pulled off an excellent flying save.

During the 1985/86 season, Radford was ever-present so Glen didn't make any first team appearances. However, when Radford was injured early in the 1986/87 campaign, Glen came in to replace him and made his first appearance of the season in a Southern League game at Erith & Belvedere on 6.9.86. The Thanet Times said that he "performed admirably" in a 0-0 draw. United manager John Wickens said Glen "put in a very good performance, handling crosses well and looking confident and secure. The opportunity will certainly be good experience for him." After he'd kept another clean sheet in a 3-0 win over Corinthian at Hartsdown on 13.9.86, Wickens praised Glen for "another fine performance" adding "he has done all that has been asked of him". Wickens went on to say "if Joe had been available against Corinthian I doubt if I would have chosen him...it was a daunting task for Glen to come in from the reserves and it has given him an unexpected chance to show his potential".

The Adscene said that Glen "played a blinder" in a 2-2 draw at Dunstable on 20.9.86 and, in the return game at Hartsdown on 1.11.86, he made what the Thanet Times described as "a tremendous save" from a penalty in a 3-0 win. Glen plunged to his left to hold the ball at full stretch and at the time Thanet were only 1-0 up. The match report was headlined "Porter United Hero" and Wickens called it "a magic save". Glen's run in the first-team ended after a 4-1 defeat at Dorchester on 8.11.86, he was beaten by a 25-yard effort he couldn't hold after just 15 seconds and later let an angled shot past him that it was felt he should have saved. He'd played in 14 consecutive matches but was then replaced by new signing Bob Grover as Radford still wasn't fit. Glen then returned to the reserves for the remainder of the season before dropping back into local amateur football.

In the summer of 1988, Glen joined Ramsgate and he made his first-team debut for the Rams on 17.8.88 when Hythe were the visitors at Southwood. Ramsgate were 6-0 down by half-time and went on to lose 7-0 with all the goals being scored by past/future Thanet United players - Micky Heynes got three, Neil Cugley got two and the others came from Frank Ovard and Dave Carr.