I ended up on Love Island by accident – I didn’t apply, says new Islander Ron Hall

LOVE Island’s first partially-sighted contestant Ron Hall has his mates to thank after they sent in an application on his behalf as a joke.

Chatting before entering the villa, the financial advisor, 25, told The Sun: “So funny story, last year two of my friends as a joke tried to fill up an application for me.

“I got an email through and I was like, ‘no boys, this isn’t happening!’

“And then this year I got a call to basically come back again. So I answered the call and went with it. I thought why not, it’s about time.

“When I actually started thinking about it, it kind of was a perfect thing for me to do to give me that little push.

“I’m 25 now. I’ve been single for the past five years and I’ve enjoyed the single life.

“Working in the City - I just wanted my career, I wanted to make money and just graft.

“I never went to uni, I never travelled and for me Love Island is an experience as well as trying to settle down.

“I had it in my mind as a kid that I’d have everything sorted by like 27, so I think it’s about time I actually try and find a missus, settle down, get my life together.”

Ron lost the sight in his right eye when he was kicked in the head going in for a header.

He was forced to miss a whole year of school and even had to eat and drink lying face down on a specially-constructed hospital bed with a hole for his face.

But worse was to come when he was finally able to get back to the playground.

Ron, from Essex, went on: “It was tough.

“You know, the pain that I went through in terms of like the actual pain of the eye.

“And you deal with comments but you have to learn to deal with that.

“I remember when I came back to the school for the first time I had to wear a patch and there’d be some people trying to be clever, trying to be funny.

“They’d call you or pirate, popeye, the blind… whatever.

“Like my nickname when I was a kid was Ron One Eye.

“But I didn’t even let it impact me, like my Xbox name was Ron One Eye.

“You know, I used to embrace it. Because if you tell yourself those sorts of things, when people say it to you it’s not gonna hurt you.”