Halliwell Close To Signing

The name on everyone’s lips at the moment seems to be Bryn Halliwell. The young keeper has had an excellent season and is now the subject of continuous contract speculation. Following his 100th appearance for Clyde against Ayr yesterday, he kindly took the time to speak to the Website…

So, was Bryn happy to get a clean sheet in his aforementioned centenary appearance?

“I didn’t really think of it like that, but obviously it was a nice bonus. It is nice to get to the milestone though, and hopefully I’ve got another 100 in front of me.”

Bryn is well aware of the importance of having regular ‘shut-outs’:-

“Clean sheets are always nice, whether it be 1-0 or 10-0. Being 2-0 up at St.Mirren recently and losing a late goal was disappointing for me personally; I don’t like losing goals. Clean sheets are always good for confidence.”

Many Clyde fans had commented that his first half save in Tuesday night’s match against Inverness was one of the best they had ever seen. However, Bryn was characteristically modest:-

“Steve Hislop had a free header and luckily it’s came in at a nice height and I’ve not been too far away, so I managed to get a hand to it. I caught it in one hand but as I went down it bobbled out my grasp so the next thing for me is to get up and stop Bobby Mann from getting to the ball. Everyone has said it was a good save, but to be honest I had saves against St.Mirren which I liked more.”

Another discussed incident in the same match, involving his Manager seemingly pushing him over, was quickly dismissed by the Englishman as trivial:-

“There was nothing in it. I was coming out to have a go at Andy Millen and Alan put his hand out to stop me and caught me off balance.”

By all accounts, Bryn has been one of Clyde’s most improved performers this season. He puts this down to hard work, and also believes a disappointing opening match at Palmerston Park (when he was dropped for Dave McEwan) has spurred him on:-

“I think that over the two years I have been here I’ve been getting slowly better. I’m 22 now, but I came here as a young lad playing first team football and I was improving but also making silly mistakes. But, now I seem to have ironed most of them out, although there is still the odd mistake.”

“At the start of the season when I wasn’t playing, I thought it was going to be a bad season for myself, but when I ended up back in between the sticks I thought ‘I have to keep myself here’. I can’t afford to be out the team and I want to be playing at a higher level in years to come. Every day I train as hard as I can and I also do things off the field like work in the gym.”

The question everyone wants answered is – will Bryn be a Clyde player next season? Unfortunately he couldn’t give a definite answer, but he did have some encouraging news:-

“I spoke to Alan Kernaghan on Friday and we are going to have another chat with the Chairman and see what we can work out, but it’s looking good at the moment. I’m happy at Clyde and thankfully the Manager has said he is happy with me, so we just have to come to some arrangement contract wise. If we can come up with something good then I’ll definitely be signing.”

There has been a fair amount of speculation linking Bryn to some SPL clubs, but he denied any approach has been made:-

“No, I’ve heard nothing. I’m just playing football and I don’t know if there’s anything else out there.”