Thank you, Liam Kinsella

Sad to see kins go as felt he could have been a useful squad player. But obviously wants and maybe deserves more than that.

As others have said, a fantastic servant to the club (i didn’t realise it was 19 years!) and always gave 100%. Cared more than any other player in that time and got battered into walls, hoardings and all over the pitch by players twice his size but with half the heart, so thanks Liam. Always a saddlers legend and best of luck with wherever you end up :+1:

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You can’t sign passion and love for the shirt. Kins gave us that in spade loads. The days of having a connection with players are long gone, Kins had that connection. As @Blazing_Saddler said if even a few of the rabble we have had in last few years cared as much as Kins did we probably wouldn’t be in this mess. Good luck Liam and thanks for your commitment :sparkling_heart:

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Class act will be a star at another club who play to his strengths

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Top bloke who tried really hard for a team and club in continuous decline.

He’ll get fixed up somewhere I’ve no doubt. It’ll be very interesting to see whether it was his ability or the Walsall FC environment which stymied his career. Given all of our uncertainty over exactly which end of the table we shall be fighting next year it’ll be interesting to see if and how we miss him. For me a team of Kinsellas would never get promoted but it would certainly not get relegated either.

Good luck Liam and thanks for the effort.

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The keeper might struggle with crosses.

Having slept on it, I awoke with a sort of mourning feeling - the end of an era.

I don’t buy the idea that his career had gone off the rails. Before he was injured, he was the same as ever this season. It must have been a very tough decision for Sadler to be involved with but I see it as a sign of two things. First, that he wants to play in a style unsuited to Kinsella and, second, that he respects Kinsella too much to ask him to sit on the bench all season.

As Kins himself says, it’s time for a new adventure and I have no doubt he will be snapped up, probably on a better contract by a team with high ambitions. And I hope he does well.

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Good luck to Liam, I hope he gets fixed up somewhere decent and on any return to Bescot he will always receive a fantastic welcome.

There was a time when we had loads like him, players who spent years at the club, who we watched develop from kids to senior pros. When we kick off next August, how many in our team will have more than one season as a Saddler under their belt? Not many. It’s not just a Walsall thing, few clubs have players that stick around for years now, but I miss it, I miss seeing the same opponents play for the same teams year after year, and I really miss the identity we had as fans with players we knew so well and had seen so often.

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Good post. I agree with your view but with the Bosman ruling and the creation of the greed league the game has changed beyond recognition in the last 2 decades.

It certainly has, and for the better in many ways. Bosman was a necessity, but I still miss players staying at clubs for years.

I think we three, along with many others, date back to the 1960s when it was the norm for players to stick around. It certainly does make a difference because you see the same players over several years and you developed an empathy. Players also tended to live locally, have roots in the area whereas I think a lot of the current players share flats before moving on.

Jumbo also makes the good point about the opposition players - seeing Alfie Biggs (later to play for us) for Bristol, that sort of thing. And spectators were allowed to mix.

I wonder if we will ever see another player to rack up 250 games. Trivela seem to want continuity but players have agents these days and that changes everything. I don’t imagine Colin Taylor or Stan Bennett had agents.

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Yes we are into some nostalgia now but it was good to see local lads like Harrison, Richards, Taylor etc come into the team and stay for years. I miss that but JUMBO is also correct when he says the game is better.
As for your last point I think players who reach 200 appearances for clubs at our level will be rare.

For those who were watching Walsall in the 70s and 80s, Gillingham had a keeper called Ron Hillyard who we must have played against about 30 times, or getting on. There are dozens of Walsall players I’ve seen less often than Ron Hillyard. :grin:

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Yes, some keepers seemed to stick around forever. Bob Wesson, who died last year, played more than 200 times for us. And Jimmy of course.

Another difference, with players staying longer at clubs, was that it was rarer for an ex-player to be in the opposition team. These days, it is rare for that not to be the case.

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That hadn’t occurred to me but I think you are right.

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I have just read the lengthy piece by Sadler on the club website about Liam. It seems to me Liam had probably received an offer from another Club which we decided not to match. Other than using the word “fantastic” too much it is a good and generous statement.

Really sad to see Liam go - when played in the right position, he did exactly what was asked of him: win it, play something simple and get ready to do the same again.

Comsella destroyed him - thought Flynn tried playing him a bit further up field and we didn’t see best of him there. When Sadler played McEntee in Midfield ahead of Kinsella, it signalled the end for me.

Always given 100% and Player of the Season twice - not many can say that. He will be missed and hope he gets fixed up with new club - I don’t think he will be short of offers.

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Flynn wasn’t good for Kinsella.

He wasn’t good for Walsall FC either. Already seeing revisionism on his tenure. The word “proven” always doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting.

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Strange. I’ve not seen a single positive quote. Nor should there be but not sure his spell is being revised.

He wasn’t, as evidenced by the two months spent trying to play him as a number 8 and the insistence on selecting him alongside a bloke who does exactly the same job. But he was bad for the midfield in general, even Hutch.

Think there will always be a bit of revisionism when a manager is replaced by a less popular choice, but seen nowhere near the same for Flynn as the ‘DC was sold out by the board’ stuff.

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All because Liam voted for Brexit.

Which was alright for him, as he is Irish :wink:

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