By Neil Ravenscroft & 4two
May 29 2005

It's been 2 years since we put our last Legends XI squad together. Since then we've seen the likes of Paul Merson, Julian Joachim, Paul Ritchie and Vinny Samways leave there mark...

 

The Legends XI squad is a team of the greatest Walsall players as voted for by the readers of TheSaddlersFC. Each week you get to select the best players in each position. They then enter a poll to fill the vacant berths. 

This week we start with the goalkeepers. There are 8 nominees with the top 3 making the squad. 

The current members of the squad are....

Jimmy Walker Needs no introduction to any Saddler.  Currently with West Ham United, Jimmy kept goal for the Saddlers during what turned out to be an exciting period in the Clubs history.  He has always been regarded as one of the best goalkeepers outside of the Premiership and is a “legend” amongst the fans.

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Bert Williams Only made 28 appearances for Walsall, during the war years, before going on to fame and fortune with Wolves, where he won his England caps.  A great shot stopper, he is usually classed as one of Molyneux’s all time greats.

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Phil Parkes Was with Walsall for two seasons, before moving on to QPR, when they were one of the country’s top teams, and West Ham.  Managed one England cap (away in Portugal) at a time when he was competing with Shilton and Clemence.  Big, dominant and a great shot stopper.

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The other nominees are: -

Mark Wallington Gave great, if short, service to Walsall, before moving on to a higher level.  His longest spell was as the Leicester City number one for several seasons, where he was something of a folk hero amongst the fans.  Was talked of as a possible England keeper at the time.

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Ron Green Not as big a name as some of the others, but was a great servant to the club and a very underrated goalkeeper.  Was one of the crucial players during the “wilderness years” just before our current run of success.

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Fred Barber - One of the games real characters and best known keepers of the 1980s and early 1990s. Now the goalkeeping Coach at Bolton, Fred is better known for his wacky sense of humour than his goalkeeping skills.

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Harry Wait Walsall’s keeper for most of the twenties, was similar to Jimmy Walker, in being regarded as a far better player than the Division we were in.  When the Express and Star had its vote for the all time Walsall legend, was highly enough regarded to have got 6% of the vote

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Mick Kearns Walsall’s most capped player (15 times with us and 18 in total), an Eire International.  Starting with Oxford, he also played for Wolves.  Despite his height, was known as a good shop stopper, rather than a “dominator of the box” and nowadays is the club goalkeeping coach and part time match summariser for WM.  A mean golfer too!

The Poll is on the front page of the site. Get voting now !