Tag Archives: Ryan Nolan

HAVING put severe injury setbacks behind him, Ryan Nolan is now an important player for Hercules CF, the Alicante club that has just won promotion to Spain’s third tier. Hercules are a big club in Spain, with a stadium that holds 30,000 while they were in La Liga as recently as 2011. They have huge support in Alicante and there were incredible scenes of jubilation and a huge pitch invasion when they beat Lleida Esportiu on May 5, which meant they won the division and took the only automatic promotion place. Nolan, who spent the first eight years of his life in Shannon before his family moved to Spain, was famously signed by Inter Milan as a teenager. In 2020 he signed for Getafe and was on the brink of playing in La Liga, having been named on the bench. However disaster struck with a cruciate injury before he made his first team debut, and he left the club. Spells …

IN late 2020, Shannon’s Ryan Nolan was on the brink of something big. A graduate of Inter Milan’s academy, the young centre back had been on the bench for Spanish club side Getafe twice in La Liga games. He was a couple of days away from making his club debut in the Copa Del Rey (Spanish Cup). He was on the brink of a career disaster. Two days before he was set to make his debut for one of Spain’s bigger clubs he tore his cruciate ligament, and more than a year out of football would follow. The 24 year old is back on his feet now, literally and figuratively, anchoring the Raith Rovers defence in the Scottish Championship. For the first time he has had a long run of games in a club’s first team, rebuilding his sharpness and confidence. Nolan was eight years old and attending Clonmoney National School, when his parents opted to move the family to …