kevin doyle

therecklessone

Shane Long on for last 15 minutes at Reading where they lead 5-1 against Cardiff. Long and Doyle up front.

blu_sonic

agreed we need to protect ouselves from the poaching of our talent, i don't blame the poachers its in their intrest, i blame our clubs for letting them go so cheap

MrJoeSoap

A late Doyle penalty earns a draw away to WBA and keeps Reading in the FA Cup.

Value: +500k.

Roar

MrJoeSoap wrote:

A late Doyle penalty earns a draw away to WBA and keeps Reading in the FA Cup.

Value: +500k.

whats he worth now? 2.5-3 mil?

radiospan

The English Independent put him at €3.6million a few weeks ago.

MrJoeSoap

Roar wrote:

whats he worth now? 2.5-3 mil?

About that, maybe a bit more even! Should certainly be ahead of Morrison by now in the Ireland ranks, especially for the next friendly.

applehunter

This is just justification that Doyle should have been in the Ireland squad last year.

Brian, you forgot what it was all abou, boy!

eirebhoy

applehunter wrote:

This is just justification that Doyle should have been in the Ireland squad last year.

Brian, you forgot what it was all abou, boy!

Doyle was in the Ireland squad last year.

evilhomer

therecklessone wrote:

There'd better be a huge sell on clause in both the Doyle and Weso transfers, cos the money up front is an insult to the league, and the players themselves.

Well if they didn't have good sell on clauses before they will now.

I'm sure we will see a lot more Premiership/Championship scouts at the EL games throughout the season.

KdjaCL

therecklessone wrote:

There'd better be a huge sell on clause in both the Doyle and Weso transfers, cos the money up front is an insult to the league, and the players themselves.

Pats got 7k of the 100 grand for Doyle


kdjac

Big Nelly

plazzTT wrote:

The English Independent put him at €3.6million a few weeks ago.

Thats mental money. I wouldn't pay 1 million for him to be honest. Maybe 700k. He is still unproven in terms of alot of the strikers on show in the Championship. I ain't saying he aint doing well but how many flash in the pan strikers have been around and faded away over a few seasons. If he keeps this up over 2-3 seasons they he will certainly be worth major bucks!

redspider

Its good to see Doyle doing so well at Reading, who as a club are doing so well in the 2nd flight.

Roar wrote:

whats he worth now? 2.5-3 mil?

By all accounts its around the 3m level. But its not like Reading are going to sell him or anything if, and thats a small if, they get promoted. I reckon he will have a good career if things continue. He seems to be a player that can develo his game at this level.

The probem for the LOI and Cork, is that even though he was only sold for 100k, there is no way that they could have sold him for 3m. Thats just the way of the football structure, supply and demand, etc. If Cork would have asked for more, Reading would have invested their 100k or 200k or whatever elsewhere on another player they were watching, whether he is from Iceland to Serbia. The LOI is competing in the global market to supply talent, and it would take a lot of Doyles before there is a bidding war and values increases for any players here.

Buying clubs wont take risks unless players are proven, and the clubs do not see LOI as a proving ground. Going to a match at Belfield I could hardly blame them, as there is at times better fare in City parks throughout Europe.

redspider

tetsujin1979

redspider wrote:

The probem for the LOI and Cork, is that even though he was only sold for 100k, there is no way that they could have sold him for 3m. Thats just the way of the football structure, supply and demand, etc. If Cork would have asked for more, Reading would have invested their 100k or 200k or whatever elsewhere on another player they were watching, whether he is from Iceland to Serbia. The LOI is competing in the global market to supply talent, and it would take a lot of Doyles before there is a bidding war and values increases for any players here.

They couldn't ask for anything more because there was a 80k selling clause in Doyle's contract at Cork. Once Reading came in with that, Cork City had to let him speak to Reading.

redspider

tetsujin1979 wrote:

They couldn't ask for anything more because there was a 80k selling clause in Doyle's contract at Cork. Once Reading came in with that, Cork City had to let him speak to Reading.

Letting a player speak to a new club is one thing, but if there was demand for Doyle, then his price would have shot up. Cork werent able to get more for him because there was little demand for him, its that simple.

There is more demand now, as he has proven he can perform in a different "shop window". As a player, after a few months, he probably hasnt improved ability-wise. What he has shown as a person is that he is able to adapt and as a player play on a "bigger stage" in terms of fans, money, coverage, relavance for England, etc.

For LOI afficiandos, note that I have not said that the 2nd level in England is better than the LOI.

Ironically, if Doyle would have been a first team regular in the Irish squad, then his value would have probably been much higher for Cork, as he would have got exposure on the international "shop window".

If anything, its a sign that some players in the LOI are getting overlooked ability-wise, although the point that they need to prove themselves on a bigger stage still holds some water. Its a chicken and egg thing.

The only solution perhaps is for the LOI to create a better shop window, so thats a better league, better games, bigger crowds, which will attract more money, etc. We've discussed this at length elsewhere and I still think that a "forced" or encouraged club concentration is the only way to go and is one of the key steps thats needed.

redspider

Kingp35

Roar wrote:

whats he worth now? 2.5-3 mil?

Certainly not, not yet anyway. Doyle is having a great season and I hope it continues but on comparision with other Championship strikers and how much they are valued at Doyle should not be valued that high. He is playing for the top side who are free scoring but yet other players playing for lesser teams have scored more goals, but they are valued much less. I know Doyle has great potential which may push his value up, but this is just his first season and thta potential needs to be realised in at least two seaosn before you can talk about that money.

Ill use Rob Hulse as an example because I know more about him. He has scored 2 goals less than Doyle but has started 5 games less as well, Hulse has many assists this season as Doyle does also, Hulse is a proven Championship goalscorer as he has done it before both last year for Leeds and in West Broms promotion season, Doyle has been great this season but we dont know if he is just one of those strikers who has one good season and fades away. Hulse is valued around the 800k to 1m mark. Now if you compare the two players its a bit unrealistic to value Doyle so high.

He is a very good player and I hope he continues doing what he is doing but I wouldnt be a happy camper if Leeds forked out that amount of money on him, especially considering he has never played at the top level.

tetsujin1979

redspider wrote:

Letting a player speak to a new club is one thing, but if there was demand for Doyle, then his price would have shot up. Cork werent able to get more for him because there was little demand for him, its that simple.

You sure about that? Say 3 different clubs had come in with the 80k required to trigger the clause, and Doyle spoke to each of them, surely then it would be whichever club he wanted to join that would get him, even though they all offered the same amount?

KdjaCL

Clubs with money create demand not leagues, a players valuation is hardly a measurement of his talent its what the team with money will pay. Would Sunderland pay 5 million for Doyle right now? Fcuk yeah they would.
Does that make him a 5 million player???? well yeah cos he cost it but not really in a fans opinion.

Hulse...LOL the problem with proven championship strikers is they usually stay there. The ones that move on are the better players so comparing Hulse and Doyle at different ends to their careers is funny, Hulse is a journeyman if Leeds get promoted hes going right back to a Championship side, If Reading get promoted will Doyle will be gone back to the championship?

Moving on to bigger and better requires luck and someone to take a chance another example Rob Earnshaw a proven scorer in lower levels, also a proven scorer in the PL. Not going to keep him there as he signed for the wrong club/manager.

You sure about that? Say 3 different clubs had come in with the 80k required to trigger the clause, and Doyle spoke to each of them, surely then it would be whichever club he wanted to join that would get him, even though they all offered the same amount?

Technically yes but Pat Dolan the Cork manager who was sacked just before the transfer told his brother Eamon who works for Reading about Doyle and the clause and made Cork fans even more bitter, something not thought possible but there you go. So at the time there no other clubs were involved. Im sure if Shels knew of it they would have found 100k from somewhere to try sign him.



kdjac

Big Nelly

Serious people you are losing it. 5million for Doyle? he has played just over 6 months of footie. There is no club in the World no matter what situation they are in going to pay 5million let alone 2 million for a player that is really only playing top quality(this would be the view of English clubs) football for 6 months.

If Reading put on market now you might, and thats a big might, get a PL team in relagation or just above it moving for him. They would only pay over 500-700k max. There is no way a player that cost 100k has gone to 2-3million in 6 months of footie. How many games has he played at professional footie?

You refer to Earnshaw, Earnshaw was playing in Division 1 and 2 for a good few season and also had played and scored for his international team. He had a great reputation in the lower leagues as one of the best strikers and after he was bought has struggled to establish himself in the PL. Thats why he has asked for a transfer and you know why? well Robson gave him a video showing him first 6 months of season and all the mistakes he has made in games and he threw a strop.

Again people I stress the player needs experience. There is no point saying after 6 months that Doyle is going to be the next Shearer or who ever you want to call him. He needs games and experience and that will only come with time.

MrJoeSoap

Kingp35 wrote:

Ill use Rob Hulse as an example because I know more about him. He has scored 2 goals less than Doyle but has started 5 games less as well, Hulse has many assists this season as Doyle does also, Hulse is a proven Championship goalscorer as he has done it before both last year for Leeds and in West Broms promotion season, Doyle has been great this season but we dont know if he is just one of those strikers who has one good season and fades away. Hulse is valued around the 800k to 1m mark. Now if you compare the two players its a bit unrealistic to value Doyle so high.

Hulse is a quality player, but Doyles value has to do with the impact he has had and the way he has adapted to a new league.

Being the top scorer and now a first choice striker in the club steamrolling the English Championship is a certainty to get him noticed and highly valued. Whether you think he is worth £2.5 - £3m or not, it would take at least that amount of money for Reading to sell him now, and I've a feeling they would go even higher than that.

Plus, Doyle is 22, Hulse is 26.

KdjaCL

Serious people you are losing it. 5million for Doyle? he has played just over 6 months of footie. There is no club in the World no matter what situation they are in going to pay 5million let alone 2 million for a player that is really only playing top quality(this would be the view of English clubs) football for 6 months.

The point was clubs(with money/in crisis etc) dictate players fees not fans valuations, i thought that fairly obvious. Should read the previous posts and not just the ones with numbers in them.


kdjac

MrJoeSoap

Yeah I'm with KdjaC here,

Its not the fact that Doyle may or may not be worth £2.5 or £3m, its what the club are prepared to value him at. And to be honest, there is no way on this earth that Reading would let Doyle go for anything less than that.

I reckon around £3.5m or £4m (sterling of course) and they'd begin to talk. Can anyone do a decent Mourinho voice, so we can ring up Coppell and see!??!

Big Nelly

KdjaC wrote:

The point was clubs(with money/in crisis etc) dictate players fees not fans valuations, i thought that fairly obvious. Should read the previous posts and not just the ones with numbers in them.


kdjac

Yeah sorry I got that but my point is even thou I know that a club mite pay over the odds I think that day is gone. Very few clubs now pay over the odds for a player unless ur a Man Utd/Chelsea/top club that ain't going to have to worry about relagation. We have already had this week Harry coming out and saying he wasn't going to pay 100k more than he rated a player. With the amount of money clubs lose when they are relagated this is no longer an option. Im sure Sunderland would love to splash out 5million now(which they would have done 3-4seasons ago) to try and stay up. They now have said "right we are being relagated but we have a squad to bounce back up!"

Also I cant see any club moving in for him. He hasn't enough experience and thats why I cant see why people(not you Kdjac) rating him around 2.5-3mil. Hopefully by this time next season we will have a great striker who is preforming for Ireland alongside keane with Connolly/Morrison as backup. As long as Staunton is not manager

Töpher

redspider wrote:

Letting a player speak to a new club is one thing, but if there was demand for Doyle, then his price would have shot up. Cork werent able to get more for him because there was little demand for him, its that simple.

No, no its not. There was the clause in the contract, meaning Man Utd Arsenal and Barcelona could have come in; and the fee wouldn't have changed. Cork were required by law to accept offers of £80,000 (and through various personal connections Reading knew this figure.... ), after that all that mattered was personal terms. So, every club in the world could have been after him, the price would have stayed at £80k and all that would dictate the move then was who he decided to agree personal terms with. Simple as.

wheres me jumpa

scored a cracking goal last night. im really excited about seeing this guy in a green jersey.

MrJoeSoap

http://rapidshare.de/files/12977973/Highlights.wmv.html - includes Doyles goal.

blu_sonic

he really is a good prospect for the green

gimmick

wheres me jumpa wrote:

scored a cracking goal last night. im really excited about seeing this guy in a green jersey.

I was alot more excited when he played for City

He is top class, showed it again last night, and he was voted Championship POTM for January as well. Some 12 months for him.

blu_sonic

but that the catch 22 nobody took him seriously when he was a rebel, same old story, a "nobody" in the EL but a superstar the day he steps off the boat in the UK. in his own words if im good enough for a call up now i was good enough with cork

MrJoeSoap

Two more goals for the Doyle machine tonight as Reading fell to their first league loss since the first game of the season. It just keeps getting better for Doyler.

blu_sonic

mrjoesoap wrote:

The doyle machine

says it all really

dcarroll

Einst&#252 wrote: »

No, no its not. There was the clause in the contract, meaning Man Utd Arsenal and Barcelona could have come in; and the fee wouldn't have changed. Cork were required by law to accept offers of £80,000 (and through various personal connections Reading knew this figure.... ), after that all that mattered was personal terms. So, every club in the world could have been after him, the price would have stayed at £80k and all that would dictate the move then was who he decided to agree personal terms with. Simple as.

But did Roy Keane not have a release clause of 1million when he left Forest, but his price went up because of the interest in him?

eirebhoy

dcarroll wrote:

But did Roy Keane not have a release clause of 1million when he left Forest, but his price went up because of the interest in him?

If he had a clause in his contract for 1m then Forest were obliged to accept any bid of £1m.

Spider_Baby!

This was part of the eamon dunphy argument. Appareantly there was a bidding war, which is why the price went up for roy. I know nothing about Doyle though, so ill avoid this conversation!

evilhomer

Spider_Baby! wrote:

This was part of the eamon dunphy argument. Appareantly there was a bidding war, which is why the price went up for roy.

Blackburn and Man Utd ended up in a bidding war for him. Thats why his price went up.

As regards LOI players going to other leagues for next to nothing. It will only take one or two more players of Kevin Doyles talent moving to the UK before every team in England has a scout at LOI games, that is when LOI teams can start to dictate the price of the players.

This will also allow the league to improve as the teams will have more money to spend on full time pros and developing yougsters.

radiospan

Championship Top Scorers (Saturday, February 18th)

1 Marlon King Watford 16
2 Kevin Doyle Reading 14
3 Cameron Jerome Cardiff 14
4 Dave Kitson Reading 14
5 Ade Akinbiyi Sheff Utd 13

Slash/ED

Spider_Baby! wrote:

This was part of the eamon dunphy argument. Appareantly there was a bidding war, which is why the price went up for roy. I know nothing about Doyle though, so ill avoid this conversation!

Bidding war or no, if there's a clause in his contract that's what he goes for. Even if Man U and Blackburn both wanted him and Man U bid 50 million for him, if there's a 1m release clause in his contract than Blackburn would bid 1m and they'd have to accept both bids, Keane talks to both clubs and decides where he wants to go.

Spider_Baby!

Yeah, i learnt these things from Championship Manager, twas always great when you found a class player with a really low Minimum fee release clause.

MrJoeSoap

Seems he has improved so much since the move a few months ago that he is now worthy of a starting place in the Ireland squad. Maybe some more eL players should make the move, the coaching over there must be unbelievable!

Mitch Connor

plazzTT wrote:

Championship Top Scorers (Saturday, February 18th)

1 Marlon King Watford 16
2 Kevin Doyle Reading 14
3 Cameron Jerome Cardiff 14
4 Dave Kitson Reading 14
5 Ade Akinbiyi Sheff Utd 13

Funny thing is, Marlon King tried to declare for Ireland in time for the last World Cup i believe, there was definately talk of him trying to become a boy in green, and if Morrison can become an Irish player there is no reason he can't!

MrJoeSoap

King plays for Jamaica afaik.

MrJoeSoap

THIS is not the story of a hod-carrier who woke up one morning in the Premiership and can't believe his luck. Kevin Doyle has had good fortune, he knows that, but once he persuaded himself that he could play, the wider world took little convincing.

"He's a thoroughbred," says Mick Wallace, the construction millionaire who has guided him from underage teams in Wexford to advising him on contracts with St Pat's, Cork City and Reading.

Kevin Doyle arrived in England last summer, thinking, once again, that he would "just give it a shot." There was no plan, no strategic thinking, just an idea that he would see if he liked it. If not he would return to the Eircom League and enjoy himself there, maybe go to college - the business studies course which he deferred when he first arrived in Dublin remains out there somewhere, he thinks.

But now he is the Championship leaders' most talked-about player. He's scored 14 league goals this season and his progress has stunned observers in the English game. "They've got a front-line striker for £79,000, that doesn't happen," Ipswich manager Joe Royle said after watching Doyle score his second goal of the season against his team last November.

But it hasn't peaked yet. Next August, Doyle will be playing in the Premiership, 14 months after he left Cork City. Bobby Robson went vocal with his admiration last week. All of this helps, because if Doyle lacked anything as he went through his teenage years ignored by clubs and the underage set-up, it was the most elusive and most important quality of all for a footballer: confidence.

He was overlooked for several Irish underage squads, but he never felt down. "I was never disappointed that I wasn't involved because I never thought I could be," he says, sitting in the bar of the hotel adjoining the Madejski Stadium in Reading. It is his home now - "you could be in worse places."

He likes the town and likes the time - five minutes - it takes him to get to training every day. It is the thing he remembers about his first year in Dublin, the hours spent travelling to training and one of the things he enjoyed about Cork was the proximity of his house to the training ground. Now it is perfect. "Some of the lads live close to London and spend an hour and a half travelling and I don't know how they do it. Twenty minutes is the maximum for me."

He sees no point in it, the training ground for him as a child was the back garden. He played with teams, too, but every day he would go out to the garden with his brother, just the two of them, out in the country. At weekends, if cousins came to visit, they'd have a bigger game, but they were content, just the two of them.

"From the age of six, all I did was play in the back garden with my brother, non-stop, every single day, rain, hail or snow we'd play. Honestly, not messing, I know you hear people saying that, but we actually did play, every evening till it was dark. We were nuts really."

'From the age of six, all I did was play in the back garden with my brother, non-stop, every single day, rain, hail or snow'

The technique that is part of the thoroughbred was developed then. His father had a few trucks in the yard and Doyle would hit a ball off the side of the trailers, the hours of solitude forming the footballer.

There are moments he looks back on and wonders at how the choices we make shape our lives in ways unimaginable. He remembers one Sunday morning when he was 17 pulling into a GAA ground in Wexford. On the field, the county's U21 footballers were arriving for training. He had been called into the panel. The following day, he was due to go training at St Pat's, but he knew if he left the car he would be committed to the U21s for at least a year.

"The manager of the team was my PE teacher at school as well and he'd been on at me for weeks and months, seemed like years. I knew I'd be committed if I got out of the car. I watched for about five or ten minutes. I'm glad I didn't get out that day, it was pissing rain as well." Instead, he went home, had his Sunday dinner and returned to football.

From his teenage years he loved Gaelic football too. He sees the benefits in the toughness it instilled, but wonders, perhaps, if he will have to learn sometimes when he's fouled to stay fouled.

"Just seeing some of the challenges in the Chelsea Barcelona game, when Del Horno and Messi went shoulder to shoulder and the two of them went down holding necks, ankles, legs everything and then looking at the ref to see what sort of reaction they get.

"I get a lot of challenges when I should fall down but I try and stay up, which comes from playing Gaelic football where you wouldn't get a free in that situation. But there are times when I lose my balance and probably lose the ball when I should have gone and got a free. Because I stood up the ref hasn't given me anything. I could probably learn a bit more from that. But it helps, definitely physically-wise, you know. You take a knock, you just get up and go again. You try not to show much pain either. In Gaelic football, someone tears a hamstring and they try to play the next day."

...

MrJoeSoap

The combination of experiences was shaping the footballer. When he was 16, Wallace took the underage Wexford team to Turin to play against the Torino kids. Doyle was asked to stay at the academy; he lived there for ten weeks, a continental technical approach wedded to the physicality of Gaelic games.

"Training-wise, it was just so technical. We played very few games, even in training. It was all just working on technique and things like that - boring stuff if you think about it and if I had to do it now everyday I would just be like 'oh my God'. It was so repetitive, the stuff we did, but it was good for everything from quick feet to little ball drills and things. That's all they want down there and it shows in the way they play."

It was all he had as he wasn't registered to play in matches. City life again posed its transport difficulties. "Had to get two buses there, taking more than an hour, but it was good."

The ten weeks he got off school encouraged him, but it was a lonely time with only the thought that he'd be going home stopping him from getting too homesick. The food, he remembers too. "We had the healthiest food over there, unbelievable how healthy the food was. I don't know if it made any difference but it was healthy. It was alright, you'd be hungry enough to eat it, like."

Everything Doyle says is delivered with a wry humour which may be tempered by a tabloid headline or two. On and off the field, he has no fear, his self-belief now as strong as titanium.

But it took a long time coming. He was never afraid, he says, just certain there were players better than him wherever he played. "It's only in the last three or four years that I started to get that belief that I could sort of play and be as good as anyone else."

There weren't many looking in Wexford for players, but Pat Dolan took a chance. As a boy, he arrived in a St Pat's dressing room full of men. This wasn't football in the garden with his brother, but a livelihood.

"Playing with professional footballers was different to playing at home with your friends. It's such a cut-throat world, I suppose, and playing professional in Ireland is as cut-throat as it can get because everyone is fighting to be a professional.

"In Gaelic football you're playing for county teams, people you've grown up with, people you know in your own county. But just going to Dublin not knowing anyone, I wouldn't have done any of the training sessions they did or know what was going on so I would have stood out like a sore thumb."

He struggled in the process and jumped at the chance to move to Cork when Dolan offered it to him. He had friends from Wexford in college in the city and he lived with them, enjoying himself as he started to look at a career in the game.

Dolan, he acknowledges, toughened him up, but he's more grateful for it now than he was at the time. "He made a bit of a footballer out of me, made sure I wasn't all nicey-nicey. If it wasn't for him and Mick Wallace, I wouldn't be playing football."

In a world where money matters, he is no longer just an 80 grand punt from the Eircom League, but the bargain of the season

He saw it differently then. "Sometimes I felt he used to be picking on me and I said that to him, but now I think that's the way he knew he could get a lot more out of me and he was trying to find a way to get it out of me."

Whispers have surrounded his transfer to Reading with many wondering how a player with so much potential could go for a paltry sum in English terms. "I never did a contract with Pat at Cork, I did it with the technical director and the chairman, so I don't know how they could ever blame Pat for that."

His contract stated he could leave if a club offered £79,000. For most of his time at Cork that seemed fanciful. "When I signed my second contract, the one that the controversy was about, I was playing on the right wing. I was injured at the time, I hadn't exactly set the place alight so if they had gotten that for me then, they would have run around the place jumping for joy. So things change so quickly."

He was tempted, he admits, to stay. At Cork, he looked at John O'Flynn and George O'Callaghan as better players, but he moved upfront from the right wing at the end of his penultimate season, started the next as a striker and 11 games later had signed for Reading.

He had a new dressing room to get used to, respect had to be earned again. But the intangible was now ever-present, Doyle began with confidence and took the opportunities that came his way.

"I didn't know what to expect coming over to England, no one knew me. The Eircom League over here, they think of it probably as the Vauxhall Conference basically, and you have to sort of build up that sort of respect, people have to see you play. The fact that I was fit and did well in pre-season helped a lot and sort of gave the other players confidence in me and they have to have confidence in me as well. The manager saw me doing well pre-season and it probably stopped him signing another striker."

Reading's story is almost as remarkable as Doyle's. They lost to Plymouth on the opening day of the season and didn't lose in the league again until last Friday when Luton beat them 3-2, ending a 33-match unbeaten run.

But they will not talk about promotion despite the 19-point cushion that protects them from third place, the play-off position.

"The manager's never told us not to talk about it, it's just that nobody wants to be seeing a replay in three or four months of us talking about the Premiership next year and we're not there."

So they stay quiet, going about the business of reaching English football's hallowed ground.

Things have changed, he says, since the start of the season. In the beginning, he had time to take the ball and turn with it, now they know him, there is a man on him immediately. In a world where money matters, he is no longer just an 80 grand punt from the Eircom League, but the bargain of the season.

His fame will increase if he takes to international football as quickly. He was called into the squad last October after Brian Kerr came to watch him against Crystal Palace. Doyle's luck held: he scored one, won a penalty and was voted man of the match.

The squad he entered was a good place to be, he says, he didn't notice the poison between management and press that made Kerr's last days a tense time. "Everyone got on well, nobody seemed to have any problem with the management, then you'd read the paper and it would be '****ing hell, where did that come from'.

If he stays in the squad for the next 12 months, he is likely to be the only member of the Irish panel playing in Croke Park with a piece of the Croke Park pitch decaying in a jar at home, grabbed when Wexford won the All-Ireland in 1996.

There is history of his own to make now. If there was a plan, this - Reading's main striker and in the Irish first team within nine months - wasn't part of it. He thought maybe he'd make the Reading bench, get a run in the Carling Cup. Instead he rides the wave and he'll take Ireland with him if he can. Steve Staunton called him after a Reading game a few weeks ago. He left a message but no number so Doyle couldn't call him back. "I'll be talking to him on Sunday, I'm sure," he smiles. And for many years after that.

http://www.unison.ie/sportsdesk/football/stories.php3?ca=12&si=1569758

Really delighted for him. Here's another article from yesterday, about Stephen Ward, who plays for Bohs and ironically scored the winner for Ireland u-21's tonight, his third goal in three games for them.

Bohemians striker Stephen Ward admits the achievements of Kevin Doyle at Reading are an inspiration to eircom League players hoping to land a big move across the water.

Ward will be one of several Ireland under-21 stars in the shop window when Don Givens’s side take on their Swedish counterparts at United Park in Drogheda tonight (Tuesday).

With former Cork City players Doyle and Shane Long making giant strides at Reading, and Daryl Murphy, previously of Waterford United, earning headlines at Sunderland, the attention on Iirsh-based youngsters has never been greater.

UCD midfielder Gary Dicker and Bohs star Ward are two of the home-grown players in the under-21 side to have attracted attention from England, with Charlton said to be interested in Dicker and West Ham United monitoring Ward.

And the 20-year-old admits Doyle’s impact has given him hope of landing a potentiallu lucrative move to the pro game the other side of the pond.

Ward, who leads the attack against Sweden tonight, said: “It would be a dream to get a shot at it and I think Kevin is an inspiration to every player in the eircom League.

"Most young players think that if they don’t go away at 16 or 17 that they won’t get away at all. But Kevin has done it and Daryl got away at 21 as well, so there is always hope. If you are good enough you can get a chance.

"Kevin has proved that by scoring goals in the Championship and now getting into the senior Irish squad that it’s possible for anyone."

KdjaCL

The squad he entered was a good place to be, he says, he didn't notice the poison between management and press that made Kerr's last days a tense time. "Everyone got on well, nobody seemed to have any problem with the management, then you'd read the paper and it would be '****ing hell, where did that come from'.

Saw that and LOLed ,guess the media do pick our managers


kdjac

MrJoeSoap

Two games in the Premiership and he's off the mark, a cool header to give the Royals the lead against Villa.

eirebhoy

I think half of Doyle's goals for Reading have been headers so he'll be good for the wingers to get the crosses in. I really hope he starts in Stuttgart.

Nalz

Kevin Doyle IMO is already an above average striker in the premiership and hopefully will be as influencial (or more) as Robbie Keane is for Ireland. A nice guy to boot (Ive met him a few times - friend of a friend kinda thing) and I wish him and Reading all the best (until they play Man United)!

wheres me jumpa

Trilla dont lie to me, you met Jimmy Doyle not Kevin Doyle!

Doyle and Keane up fron in Stuttgart, has to be.

KdjaCL

wheres me jumpa wrote:

Doyle and Keane up fron in Stuttgart, has to be.

Woohoo 1 part of the team that could actually be a considered "world" class!!!

Keane proven world class, Doyle soon to be.

Now all we need is the other 2 parts.


kdjac

wheres me jumpa

KdjaCL wrote:

Woohoo 1 part of the team that could actually be a considered "world" class!!!

Keane proven world class, Doyle soon to be.

Now all we need is the other 2 parts.


kdjac

Left wing and right back

Oh and GK!

Nalz

wheres me jumpa wrote:

Trilla dont lie to me, you met Jimmy Doyle not Kevin Doyle!

would I lie to you baby
would I lie to you? oh yeah......

No Ive met him 3 times, but only really talked to him once. I was kinda distracted anyway (you know what I mean!).

He'll do well. It was even clear from that shíte we went to up in Dublin last wednesday that he'll more than make the cut