Paul Green’s high school ‘first love’ makes heartbreaking tribute

Gold Coast radio announcer Ali Plath has paid tribute to her ‘first love’ Paul Green, following his sudden tragic death.

Gold Coast radio announcer Ali Plath has shared a heartbreaking tribute to her former high school sweetheart Paul Green on air.

Plath, who joined Triple M earlier this year, fought back tears as she told breakfast show co-hosts Sean “Flan” Flanagan and Peter “Spida” Everitt of her grief at losing her first love.

“My heart is breaking today for his wife Amanda and his beautiful kids and obviously his parents, and his four siblings,” she said.

“Paul and I went to high school together, he was my first love. You only get one first love.

“We were together when I was in Year 12 for a year and then we split up. I had kids with (former partner) Mark and when that didn’t work out, Paul and I got back together.

“We then did nine years of on-off, long-distance, de facto … I guess we were that couple that I think our family and friends were so much happier than we were when we finally split up (laughs).

“Paul was a wonderful stepdad to my two older kids Jesse and Jake when we all lived in Sydney together when I finally had the courage to move them.

“For him to swallow his pride and I guess take my kids under his wing, I really didn’t appreciate how big that was at the time. It’s a big responsibility taking on someone else’s family.

Paul Green. Picture: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images

“Paul was extremely loyal, he was highly intelligent - even though I used to tell him I was smarter than him. When I was in Year 12, he was two years older than me, and he was getting up me for not doing my schoolwork.

“He just had such a great sense of fun as well as being so capable. If Paul said to you “I’m going to be a pilot”, (you knew) he was going to be a pilot. And he did - he was a commercial pilot.

“My mum let him take me to Hervey Bay in this mosquito aeroplane when he was doing his training. That’s how capable Paul was. You trusted him, you knew he could do it, I never doubted him.

“He was just one of those people who you knew you could rely on. (As an NRL player), he was one of those players you could count on and he would give his all.”

Like many people, Plath said she was completely blindsided by Green’s death.

“I can’t believe that he’s done this, I can’t believe this has happened,” she said.

“That’s not Paul. I’m actually in complete and utter shock. I only spoke to him a couple of months ago.

“It’s horrendous.”

Plath shared one of her favourite memories of Green: the two of them “rocking” their mate’s roof.

“Everyone would do it at different times,” she said.

“Paul had just had his shoulder reconstructed so it was just ridiculous that he’d even be doing that.

“Paul and I are crouched down behind these bushes and chucking more rocks and he’s (their friend) yelling out f-off. We were crying with laughter so hard that Paul couldn’t hold his farts in.

“We ended up going to talk to (their friend) and as we were leaving he (Green) slipped on the steps and bunged his shoulder again.”