11-05-2025
Hearts debut a surprise to Fulton after he misses call
Hearts' third-choice goalkeeper Ryan Fulton missed the call to tell him he was making his first-team debut - because his young son was playing on his former Hamilton shot-stopper only found out he was in the starting XI for Saturday's 3-0 win over when he arrived at Tynecastle Park before the game."[I found out] literally as I turned up here," he told BBC Scotland. "Paul Gallacher [Hearts' goalkeeping coach] had tried to call me but my wee boy had the phone so he kept on just dinghying it."Once I got here, Gal was like 'I've tried calling you!' I was like, 'sorry, wee man's had the phone.' He was like, 'you're playing" and I was like, 'oh, no way!'. Then it was just obviously a whirlwind from there pretty much."Dropped into the squad after Craig Gordon woke up with a neck complaint, Fulton kept a clean sheet as Hearts strolled to victory."I was just still prepared the same way," added Fulton. "Obviously, Zander [Clark] is coming back into training now as well, so there's a bit more competition there but it was nice to actually get the nod because it could have been easy to put Zander in there as well."It's lovely to get the clean sheet but the most important thing is to get the three points to make sure we stay in this league and take our form into next season."Despite a torrid season for Hearts, Fulton has enjoyed his first year in Edinburgh."It was nice coming to this culture and environment," he said. "The pressure and the club demands, that's been different as well. But I've enjoyed that challenge and obviously I know I've not played much football but I've been experiencing it."Learning off Craig and Zander and watching Gal [Paul Gallacher] in the training and seeing how that works, it's been good for me, I've enjoyed it."
