Wolves midfielder battles back from injury (updated)

Nate Smyth was determined not to let a severe leg injury curtail his soccer career.

The 19-year-old midfielder for the St. Catharines Club Roma Wolves suffered a broken patella (knee cap) three years ago but battled back to resume his career.

“It was not good,” the Sir Winston Churchill graduate said. 

Smyth was playing for Roma’s reserve team at the time and will never forget the incident that sidelined him up for over a year.

“I was on a breakaway and the goaltender came out and went through me,” he said. “It was a little unfortunate. I didn’t know at the time. I kind of got back up and kept playing. It wasn’t until about 10 minutes after my knee was like a balloon.”

Further complicating matters was the timing of the injury.

“It was right before COVID was picking up. It was up and down and I had to wait almost 10 months for MRI just to know what was wrong,” Smyth recalled. “I had pain and I couldn’t do anything and no one really had any answers.”

Smyth finally underwent surgery but the rehabilitation was not without its challenges.

“It took about 16 months to get back to normal after surgery,” he said. “It was very difficult. When you are injured for that long you think about maybe quitting the sport or trying something new.”

Smyth was still in high school at the time of the injury and was an accomplished cross country runner — he was part of Churchill’s 2019 overall boys champions at OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) — and began rehabbing while training for cross country.

“I was still running very competitively and with Benny (Ralston) at Runner’s Edge so for a while I just focused on getting back to just the running because it was just easier to do that every day,” he said. “It wasn’t until six or seven months before I thought I would give soccer a try again and see how far I could go and it’s been good.”

Smyth began soccer at a young age at Club Roma.

“I live just around the corner so it’s always been in my backyard,” he said. 

Smyth progressed from house league to travel and then played at the regional level before joining Roma three years ago when they entered League1.

“I jumped on it right away and not turned back,” he said. “It’s been awesome. It’s been nothing but good. My first year I was on reserve team because I was a younger player.”

The Wolves have eased Smyth into action this season. 

“He’s a great kid with an incredible attitude. He works hard every single practice and game,” Roma director of soccer operations Davide Massafra said. “He is one of the youngest boy on the squad so he doesn’t always play a lot but he is using this season to learn to play against the adults in the top league. He could have played easily for our u21 men’s team but we decided to promote him up with the first team to accelerate his grow for next year.”

Massafra feels the sky is the limit for Smyth.

“I’m expecting him to improve a lot in the next few years and be able to achieve great things,” he said.

Smyth plans to play this fall for the Niagara College Knights while at the school for the first term where he is on an apprenticeship to be an electrician. 

The Wolves dropped a 1-0 decision to North Mississauga FC Tuesday night at Kiwanis Field in a rescheduled game from last week.

The Wolves, 5-12-2, wrap up their season Friday at home at 8:45 p.m. versus Unionville.

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