Sam Walker

jonathan gould , matt clark , mark prudhoe ,

 

Neville Southall??

 

Jordan Pickford.

 

We've had some pretty decent keepers over the years. Walker is one of them.

 

Genuinely sad about this one. His form did drop a bit last season, but he still made key saves for us and I had hoped after a pre season and a push from a backup he would come out firing again and be number 1. Absolute gent, giant and someone who will be missed.

I remember his first game when he did his goal kick routine and without a word of a lie, our fans were booing him because we were drawing 0-0 i believe at home and he took too long...

Solid keeper. Great move for him though, he deserves that.

 

His first game was away at Colchester, I remember, as he let in a goal similar to what Lewis had a few weeks earlier, and fans on here were saying he couldn't do much about it despite Lewis getting pelters. It's funny how perceptions on players change.

You're right, though; there were some boos at a home game when he did that. Sitting in the lower kop I heard them myself.

 

I think you will find that he was going down under instruction from the manager either before the match or during.

 

That’s alright then.

 

I didn’t say it was alright. I am not in favour of the dark arts, but other clubs started doing this a long before we did. I would prefer we didn’t tbh. However, you can’t land it at the keepers door, it is definitely a managers instruction. It is manipulation of the rules.

 

Absolutely but the law has changed this season I believe to address that. I believe an outfield player will have to leave the pitch for 90 seconds or something.
I suspect it will result in a signifant reduction in keeper 'injuries' in the forthcoming season!

 

I can see one major flaw in this which I'm predicting will be used as a loophole very quickly and become common. I can see goalkeeper's using any sort of contact from a cross or corner and going down 'injured' if they want a timeout. I can understand the other 2 exemptions but not with the middle one as it's too easy to manipulate.

 

When was the last time we had a first choice keeper wearing a number other than ‘1’ and our back up keeper wearing the number 1 shirt?

Back when we had McLaughlin (1) and Duke (12)?

 

We were sat behind our goal in the Colchester game, we were playing 10 minutes of added time mainly because of Walkers desperate time wasting for which he had got the first of his many bookings for.
He flipped a cross over the bar which was going out for a goal kick and from the ensuing corner he missed the flight of the ball enabling a short arsed player to head in the 99th minute equaliser at the far post.
Never really took to him after that.

 

I still think the opposition team should be able to select who sits out for a minute.

 

Some of us old ones will remember the great Peter Downsborough.

 

Sam wasn’t even on the bench for Watford yesterday. Why couldn’t he have stayed at City for the rest of the season to compete with McCracken instead of tossing it off as third choice at Watford ?

 

Family comes first, he lives down South, i think his kids are at an age where they notice when Dads away.. that was his main reason, 1 year contract of doing f-all apart from train and be closer to his fam, then retire.. win win for the guy

 

I think he knew exactly what he was getting into at Watford,he will do a bit of coaching,keep himself in shape to step in if needed,and slowly wind down his career.He has been preparing for life after football,so good luck to him.