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On the message board I referred to him as 'daft as a brush' and that description fit around twelve years ago when I first met him and did so right until his sad death.
We first came into contact via the Clarets Independent Supporters Association (CISA) around the time when Chris Waddle was attempting to be our manager and also around that time he was running his own Burnley web site when I was still just about discovering the internet.
He was working for a company called Bridge at the time who were responsible for both the Blackburn Rovers and Accrington Stanley official web sites and Alan thought that Burnley should have a professionally run site and persuaded Bridge to start a site called Clarets Mad.
It was around this time that he was also a big help to me when I took on the role of launching a web site for CISA.
It was, without doubt, the strangest Burnley site I've ever seen and was something of a flop although he did use it to launch his fancy dress outings. How many went to Derby for the cup tie in 1999 dressed as Santa, and to Coventry for the next round of the FA Cup as Arabs?
Undeterred by the disappointment of Clarets Mad he joined the club for a short time to run the official site and was there at the time of the club's promotion but that was short lived and he moved back to Bridge.
Bridge became Footy Mad and from there came a new look Clarets Mad as the network of club unofficial sites was launched in late 2000. Alan became the first editor of the site.
He never stuck with anything for long though and by early 2001 didn't want the responsibility any longer and one night a surprise phone call from him led to me taking over at the end of March.
For a short time he helped, but his wanderlust took him away for a time and then occasionally he would come back and start other sites although in fairness I think the inspiration had by then left him and they weren't really successful.
He'd been back at Clarets Mad as a message poster for some time and was still the same Alan, I'm not sure he could have ever been any different.
Alan Boys is the reason I'm sat here now with the responsibility for writing this although this is definitely one piece I didn't want to have to write. I can only ever thank him for the help he gave me with both CISA Online and Clarets Mad.
He leaves behind his partner Linday and three children Rachel (20), Scott (19) and Ross (12) to his former wife Caroline and my thoughts and prayers are with all of them at this very sad time.
God Bless Professor Moriarty, you will be sadly missed.