IT is appropriate that the name of Richie Ryan’s new club is Locomotive.

He explains: “Myself and my wife were talking the other day. We got married three years ago and this is our fourth city. It’s the way football works.”

3 Richie Ryan now plays for USL side El Paso Locomotive

3 Ryan has settled well in Texas

In 2014, the former League of Ireland star moved to North America to play with Ottawa Fury in Canada, setting out to build a new life.

From there, he switched to Jacksonville Armada in 2016, then on to Miami FC, Cincinnati and now Locomotive El Paso.

El Paso play in the USL — effectively the American second tier, though there is no promotion to the MLS.

It is all part of the job for Ryan, who knows that football is fickle and contracts often are not worth the paper they are written on.

'WE'RE HAPPY'

But the 34-year-old has been happy in south Texas since signing in January.

He said: “It’s different to the places that we’ve lived since we came over here. There is lovely scenery here, the mountains are gorgeous, clear blue skies, it’s hard to complain.

“All we need is a coffee shop and a play area for the kids and we’re happy anyway!”

Ryan joined Cincinnati last year with the belief that he would be playing in the MLS by now, as Cincy joined as an expansion team.

He added: “When I moved over here in 2014, my main objective coming to North America was playing in MLS.

“I knew I was doing it the long way but I wanted the opportunity to play at that level.

“That was the idea behind moving to Cincinnati — a year in USL, a year in MLS and see how I felt at the end of the MLS year, see if I was ready to hang up the boots or keep going.

“The manager (Alan Koch) and everybody spoke to me during the season about moving into the academy as a coach if I did decide to finish at the end of the MLS season.

“But I don’t know why they bothered speaking to me about it because it got my hopes up.

NOT PART OF THE PLANS

“The manager obviously didn’t see him as part of his plans, even though he promised me a two-year contract with the promise of the MLS.

“But in sport, guarantees don’t really mean anything, they can be turned away fairly easily. Last season, I cracked my fibula, that put me out for three months.

“I came back towards the end of the season. I was told I was going to play a bigger role in the play-offs but it didn’t play out that way.

“Our end-of-season meetings, I thought I was going to be staying but they thought otherwise.

“He made his feelings clear that he didn’t see him as part of plans.

“I don’t think me and the manager probably seen football in the same way, I know he thought I took too many risks with playing out from the back and stuff like that.

“At the end of the day, that’s his style, that’s fair enough.

“But you probably shouldn’t have brought me to the club in the first place because that is what I do, what I’ve done my whole career.”

The former Sligo Rovers and Shamrock Rovers midfielder knows football is a cutthroat business.

But he admits this time it was harder to take for other reasons.

He explained: “For me as a player, it doesn’t really bother me that I’ve moved again. But I have a young family, we settled in really well in Cincinnati. We’re moving my daughter to a new school now.

'DAD, WHY DO WE ALWAYS MOVE?'

“She’s 4½, she had friends in school, sleepovers and play dates. And you say that, ‘Holly, we’re on the move again’.

“She’s like, ‘Dad, why do we always move?’. How do I answer that to a 4½-year-old?”

Locomotive manager Mark Lowry previously coached Ryan at Jacksonville and the pair remained in touch. The ­Tipperary native has nothing but praise for the Englishman.

Ryan said: “I’ve signed a couple of years, I know the manager really well, we have good friendship from Jacksonville, where he was one of the assistants.

“We’ve kept in touch, he then became head coach at Jacksonville and I was watching what he did. He’s got a different way of doing things and he wants to play football the same way I want to play.

“A lot of managers say they want to play this style but then you end up working for them and it’s different.

“I hope if I become a coach, I’ll stay true to what way I want to play.

“Working with Mark, I think, will give me the opportunity to transition into the coaching side. I fully expect him to be one of the top coaches over here over the next couple of years.

“It will only benefit me to work with him every day and, hopefully in the long-term, we can keep working together.”

He has moved conference in the USL, meaning he will be visiting new cities.

The player continued: “I’ve been down the whole east coast, I thought it was time to head out west!

“The league, there is a lot of places we haven’t been and it is so spread out.

“We fly to most games. Our nearest rival is Albuquerque, it’s three hours away by bus. Tucson is the next closest, that’s five hours. I suppose I’ve some experience of that travelling when with Sligo!”