I got so sick of Limerick but now I’m on a High
WINGING IT EX-GER BACK ON UP
TOM WALSH is living proof you can take two steps back to move one forward.
The 21-year-old winger has just clinched a two-year deal to get back into full-time football with Championship side Inverness after a season playing part-time with Dumbarton.
It has been a long road back to the top levels of the game for the ex-Rangers star after he reached his nadir in a lonely hotel room in Limerick as he struggled to get a game with the Irish Premier Division outfit.
Walsh was with Rangers from age nine until 20 and made 13 first-team appearances for the Light Blues.
He made his debut in December 2012, aged just 16 years and 150 days in a Third Division match against Stirling.
That saw him become the youngest post-war league debutant for the Ibrox side and BY ANTHONY HAGGERTY the second youngest debutant behind Derek Ferguson.
However, in January 2017, Walsh knew his time at Ibrox was coming to an end and left.
But nothing prepared him for the footballing abyss.
Walsh said: “I knew I would be leaving Rangers. I played a couple of times under Mark Warburton but knew I wasn’t in the plans.
“I left in the January and thought I would be fine.
“The weeks went by and nothing was happening. I was sitting on a Saturday watching the scores come in thinking, ‘I should be playing.’
“I did not have any options and the chance came to go to Ireland and play for Limerick.
“I wasn’t appreciated at the club and the manager left so the caretaker took over.
“I felt I was training well but I was not getting a look in. Even the players were saying, ‘you’ve played for Rangers why can’t you get a game for Limerick?’
“That’s no disrespect to Limerick but after three months I asked to leave.
“I reached a low point in Ireland as I was living in a hotel – well it was just one room – and I was stuck in there staring at the walls for hours on end.
“I was away from all my family and all alone.
“We trained Monday to Thursday as they played on Friday night.
“I wasn’t even playing so that meant having three days off sitting doing nothing in Limerick.
“I then spoke to Steve Aitken who was the Dumbarton boss.
“He told me to come in for one day and show him how hungry I was.
“I arrived at the club and we didn’t even do football stuff. It was just the bleep tests and the army training stuff and he offered me a part-time deal right there.”
The football dream most certainly isn’t over.
There is a hunger that burns within Walsh and he can envisage the day when he takes his Premiership bow.
He said: “I know there are people out there who will criticise me and say what a fall from grace I’ve had.
“I don’t want to be ‘Tom Walsh the ex-Rangers player’ as people will hold that against me and say I have gone back the way. But I know I can deal with that.
“Being a free agent has made me appreciate my lot more. A year on I am hungrier.
“I am excited now because I know I am joining a Premiershipstyle team that won the Scottish Cup three years ago. Inverness are a proper club but I don’t want to settle for that. I want to take Inverness up to the Premiership.”