Kyle Vassell can firmly be considered a well-travelled footballer. 

The striker has played for 20 clubs in his career so far, taking him from Blackpool to San Diego, with Kilmarnock his latest destination. 

The 30-year-old has settled well in Ayrshire during his initial six months at the club, and he agreed on a contract extension to keep him at Rugby Park until 2025 in recent months. 

His goals in the second half of the season, particularly post-split, helped fire Killie to Premiership safety on the final day of the campaign. 

And while he’s delighted at the club and is determined to kick on in the 2023/24 term with Derek McInnes’ men, Vassell admits he still has at least one more move in him before he hangs up his boots in years to come. 

Detailing his affinity for his boyhood club in England, Vassell revealed: “I think my career will end at Boreham Wood. They were my club when I was a kid. They were a very lower-league team. Now, they’re a bit higher, they lost out to Wrexham to get promoted recently.   

“I know all of the guys at the club. I played with some of them when I was younger. I know the chairman and all of his sons who work at the club. They’re family friends. So, I think my career will end back down the road and probably with that club.   

“An adventure is when you go with the flow. I do have goals here, but you enjoy the adventure. I’m enjoying seeing where it goes.” 

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Performing well for Killie and doing the business for them is at the forefront of Vassell’s mind heading into the new season. 

However, he is keen to reestablish himself as an internationalist for Northern Ireland. With two caps to his name already, he’s ready to add more with Michael O’Neill now back at the helm of the national team. It was he who handed the Englishman a chance just under five years ago. 

With O’Neill keeping tabs on Scottish football and maintaining close communication with McInnes, Vassell believes he’s in the perfect place to catapult himself back onto the scene at Windsor Park. 

“You suspect it is gone, but that’s where your inner drive comes from and your ambition,” the player said of his international prospects. “I never let go of it. Never gave up and thought that’s it. 

“Even when I went to America, I went to that league because I wanted to play in the MLS. If I’d done that, I’d definitely have got back in the squad. Now I’m in the SPFL, and that is going to help me.  

“I thought it would be difficult because some really good young players are coming through, but I always knew if I am doing the right things at the right, sometimes it is impossible not to bring players back or get them into the fold. I just tried to use the process of making it impossible not to pick me. 

“The squad I was in, it was slightly a weird one because the boys were still on a massive high because they had just reached a Euros which was a massive thing for a country like Northern Ireland. And they did well in the Finals. 

“But I think my first squad came after qualification had just been missed. There was a bit of a low just as I was getting into it. 

“My last squad was just as Michael was leaving. At the same time, when you have boys like Davo, Jonny Evans, Cathcart, who have been at the top level, it doesn’t matter, and you get on with it. 

“Now with Michael being back, I feel everyone believes the squad can get back to the same sort of heights. 

“I think he [O’Neill] is in contact with the gaffer because a few boys qualify. That will help me if I keep impressing the gaffer here because he will then put in a good word for me and everything could fall into place.”