Interview: Thomas Flynn

In the UK, only Celtic have conceded less goals than Cowdenbeath at home this season and the man who has been between the sticks for the majority of our Second Division campaign has been Newcastle-born Thomas Flynn who was initially brought in to train with the side when Jimmy Nicholl was still manager:

“At the end of last season I was training at Cowdenbeath when Jimmy Nicholl was in charge and when he left Colin said he was still interested. I really enjoyed my time training with Cowdenbeath and when Colin spoke to me he said he would give me a fair shot and to be fair he has done that and I have not looked back since.”

At the beginning of the season Thomas found first team games hard to come by as Yossi Bejaoui was the preferred no. 1 for the first few games: 

“I understand why Yossi was first choice because the big man had a great pre season, but I knew if I just kept my head down, trained hard and played well in the games that I did get that I might get a shot and eventually I did and ever since then I’ve been playing every week so it’s been brilliant.”

Before his move to Central Park, Flynn had been in the Hibs youth side for a number of years before loan spells at Alloa Athletic and Albion Rovers which has always seen Flynn play for sides at the top ends of the table: 

“I've always played in successful teams to be honest, I played for the Hibs under 19's team that won everything, I was part of the Alloa team that just missed out on promotion to Cowdenbeath in 2010, then I got promoted with Albion Rovers last season. Obviously at Cowden we have done well this season and hopefully we will keep our cool and use our experience to win the division.”

However it wasn’t all good memories for Flynn during his spell at Easter Road, as he was let go by the club while on loan at Albion Rovers last season: 

“The way I left Hibs was basically Colin Calderwood pulling me into the office and telling me he was releasing me- it was heart breaking at the time. Obviously no one wants to hear that because it’s pretty much rejection. But to be honest he’s actually done me a favour because looking back even though it was fulltime football I wasn’t really happy. I wasn’t even getting a game for the reserves so I didn’t feel it was going anywhere for me at Hibs. So I view it as a blessing in disguise considering the amount of games that I’ve played particularly this season and how well the team is doing at the minute, so it’s just been brilliant.”

Having made an impressive 14 clean sheets in 28 consecutive league and cup games this season (at time of writing) the young goalkeeper was given a contract extension that keeps him at the club until at least the end of next season, but looking too far forward isn’t something Thomas likes to do in football: 

“To be honest I just focus on where I am now and that’s playing with Cowdenbeath, and all I’m thinking about is getting promoted. But you never know what might happen, because you only need to look at guys like Jon Robertson who’s done so well for us and that’s led to him playing next season in the SPL so you never know what might happen in football. But all I’m genuinely thinking about is playing for Cowden and getting us into the First Division, and I’m glad that I’m here and playing every week because I don’t want to be at a club sitting on the bench or feel completely out the picture, I just want to play football.”

His successful career to date can all be traced back to when he was a kid and would idolise his goalkeeping hero Peter Schmeichel: 

“When I was lad growing up and seeing Schmeichel play it just made me want to be a goalkeeper because he was just such an unbelievable player. Even though I’m a Newcastle fan I would support Man U when I was younger just because of him. He was just brilliant, so quick, and didn’t take many prisoners. He was just such an inspiration to me.”

Interview by: Ross Cunningham.