Ruairí Harkin (born 11 October 1989) is a former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Youth

Harkin began his career at a very young age with Don Boscos. Throughout his career with Don Bosco's, Harkin made several appearances for the Derry and District League Select in the

Foyle Cup The Foyle Cup is a youth soccer tournament held every year in Derry City, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Along with the Milk Cup, which takes place around the same time, The Foyle Cup is one of Ireland and indeed Europe's premier youth tourn ...

and also County Londonderry in the

Milk Cup SuperCupNI, formerly called the Northern Ireland Youth Soccer Tournament and the Dale Farm Milk Cup, is an international youth football tournament held annually in Northern Ireland. The cup matches are mainly played in the North Coast area of ...

. Having turned down opportunities to sign for a number of English clubs, such as Blackburn Rovers, in order to finish his GCSE exams at St. Columb's College, he eventually signed for

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

in the summer of 2006.

Senior

Harkin looked set to have a bright future in the game and his ability was praised by coaches. However, the young midfielder failed to play a senior game for the English team and instead languished in the reserves, before being loaned out to non-league outfit,

Heybridge Swifts Heybridge Swifts Football Club is a football club based in Heybridge, near Maldon, Essex, England. They are currently members of the and play at Scraley Road. History The club was established in 1880 as Heybridge Football Club. After joining t ...

. At the end of 2008, Harkin was released by Charlton and promptly snapped up by his hometown club, Derry City. Harkin was loaned out to Derry's rivals, Finn Harps at the beginning of the 2009 season. He made 12 appearances for Harps in the early part of 2009 before returning to the Brandywell where he turned out 3 times for the Candystripes before the season ended. Ruairi made 20 league appearances for Derry in 2010, scoring three times, as the club won the First Division title, and in 2011 he made another 20 appearances, though 14 of these came as a substitute. Harkin signed for Coleraine in the Irish Premier League on 5 January 2012. Harkin joined Cliftonville on 1 August 2016 for a fee believed to be £18,000.

International career

Having represented Northern Ireland at Under-16 level, Derry-born Harkin was later called up to the Republic of Ireland Under-19 squad, where he was capped four times between 2006 and 2008.

Career statistics

Honours

Derry City *

League of Ireland First Division The League of Ireland First Division ( ga, Céad Roinn Sraith na hÉireann), also known as the SSE Airtricity League First Division, is the second level division in both the League of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland football league system. Th ...

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

* League of Ireland Cup:

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harkin, Ruairi 1989 births Living people Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland Republic of Ireland men's association footballers Association footballers from Derry (city) Men's association football midfielders League of Ireland players NIFL Premiership players A Championship players Finn Harps F.C. players Derry City F.C. players Coleraine F.C. players Cliftonville F.C. players