Greg Tansey has been forced to retired from professional football after constant complications from a hernia operation.
The 30-year-old midfielder spent 18 months at Aberdeen but, during that time, underwent three operations and contracted osteomyelitis - stopping him from training at full-time level.
He then began training with Warrington Town, but even part-time training doing only two sessions a week was leaving him in pain.
Tansey took to social media to share the sad news.
"Every footballer knows when they sign their first professional contract that it will eventually come to an end.
"Today is that day for me, an injury that I have been fighting for 2 years now has ended my career.
"I am happy with what I’ve achieved and I’m excited for what lies ahead. I’ve put these pictures up as this was the happiest/best time of my career. It has been cut short through circumstances out of my control.
"You get two lives when you’re a footballer as it doesn’t last forever. I’m going to make the most of the next chapter."
It comes after Tansey left his most recent club, St Mirren, due to the club being unable to pay for his operation.
The playmaker revealed at the time how it left his position "untenable".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here