Larne’s current longest-serving player Conor Devlin is leaving the club once his contract expires this summer.
The former Northern Ireland under-21 goalkeeper joined Larne in the summer of 2017 and leaves having won the Championship, two County Antrim Shields and back-to-back European qualification.
He is now planning to relocate to England and, as boss Tiernan Lynch points out, goes with the best wishes of everyone at the club.
“Conor was one of the first signings of the ‘new era’ for Larne and went on to become an integral part of what has been achieved to this point,” he said.
“He has played a big part on our journey and we want to thank him for all of his efforts while at the club and wish him every success going forward.
“He showed great character and determination to get back from the injury sustained a year ago and returned this year to play an important role for us.”
Having spent the last five years at the club, the 30-year-old was keen to thank the fans for their support.
He said: “I can’t thank the fans enough for the support they have given me and that has meant a lot.
“Hopefully I wasn’t shy of good performances, but I also wasn’t shy of the odd mistake as well, but they have been behind me all the way.
“I knew coming back into Irish League football wasn’t going to be easy, but they have made that process much smoother than it could have been.
“I’ll forever be grateful to Tiernan and Kenny Bruce as well. I wouldn’t say I took a chance coming to Larne, but they took a chance on me because I had been out of football before I came here.”
Devlin believes the future is bright for the club, having joined when they were at the bottom of the Championship the Invermen are now embarking on their second Europa Conference League campaign this summer.
“The growth of the club has been fantastic and I can only see that continuing. As I’ve said before, building what Larne are trying to doesn’t always happen overnight but things are moving in the right direction,” he said.
“The club is unrecognisable from when I first joined and you can see that on and off the pitch.
“You play football to win so I’ll look back on what I won with Larne very fondly and how it meant to the people of the club.”
As for the player himself he has no plans to hang up his gloves just yet.
“I’m still relatively young for a goalkeeper so I feel I’ve still a good few years left in me yet,” he revealed.
“I’ve a few irons in the fire in England, so we’ll see what transpires, but I will be supporting Larne from a distance.”
Photo: Pacemaker
