Legends: John Doyle

By Arthur Sullivan

John Doyle will be remembered as one of Kildare's greatest ever footballers.

The Allenwood forward retired from inter-county duty earlier this season , having been a key player for the Lilywhites for 15 years. He made his championship debut against Louth in 2000, and remarkably, started every single Kildare championship game - 64 in total - until his final championship game with the county in 2013 against Tyrone.

Doyle won a Leinster Senior Football Championship medal with Kildare in his debut season in 2000, but that turned out to be the only one he won in his long career. He won a Division II league title with the county in 2012.

The closest Doyle came to playing in an All-Ireland final was in 2010, when Kildare reached the All-Ireland semi-final against Down, only to lose by two points in the end. They hit the bar with a free-kick in injury-time of that game, and had it gone in, they would have been in an All-Ireland final against Cork.

As Doyle explains below, that was one of the toughest losses of his career but it was also the season when he was at the peak of his powers - he won his one and only All Star that season.

This Saturday (July 19) at 2pm, John Doyle will take a guided tour around Croke Park as part of the Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour. Click here for ticket information, as booking is essential.

Ahead of his tour, we spoke to John at length about his remarkable career.

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BACKGROUND

The earliest memory is of going training with my father Harry. My Dad played for Allenwood for a long time and like any other young lad, as soon as you get out from under your mother's feet, you were sent down to the field on a Tuesday and Thursday evening, and at weekends. So when the seniors were playing that time, I would be in tow, carrying the father's bag, all the usual things.

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My father was also involved with a lot of committees, so anything that was going on with the club, I was there. Any development that went on, we were there helping out. At that time as well, there was a good social aspect to matches. No matter where the game was on, there was a watering hole to be stopped at afterwards for a couple of drinks. To talk about football and so on. It was just bred in us.

TIPPING AROUND

I don't think at an early age I had any awareness that I might have had some ability at football. I had a love for being out kicking a ball around the place, and I didn't have any brothers to kick around with. I kicked a lot of football out in the garden, up against the wall. Years ago, at communions, confirmations and things like that, there was a local man who used to make videos. And in all the videos I'm there, with a ball in my hand, just tipping around. You're talking about the mid 1980s, so there were no computer games - all you could do was play football. But there was no stand-out moment where I thought - I'm good at this.

I went to a very small school in the country, in Allen, and I was one of the better players. But I was a big fish in a small pond then. It just wasn't a case that I had natural ability. I just worked at it, although it never felt like work. I just spent hours kicking ball against the wall, lining up frees, just chipping the ball onto the garage roof. I never thought to myself, I'll end up playing with Kildare or end up in Croke Park. It was the furthest thing from my mind at that stage.

AN ATHLETE, A BOXER

The real story is that I wasn't a talented athlete and I wasn't a talented boxer! But I threw my hand at both. I did a bit of cross country running in the Patricians in Newbridge, and John Hardiman, who went on to manage the Galway hurlers to minor and U21 All-Irelands, was a PE teacher and he wanted lads to go running with the school team. So I joined because I thought it might get me out of class for a few days. The team actually won the All-Ireland that year. I'd like to tell you I was in the top five in the race but I wasn't, I was well down the pecking order. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed long distance running. It was more natural for me, because I was never the fastest. I was a bit of a natural and maybe that's what Micko liked in training, that you could manage all the laps.

For boxing, when I was younger I boxed with the Irish Ropes Boxing Club in Newbridge and won a couple of county titles. I boxed in a Leinster final but I was beaten. But they were always only second to the football, and the more I got involved in football, the more they went to one side and eventually they just petered out. But I really enjoyed both of them.

The boxing in particular, I really enjoyed the training aspect of it. I have great memories of both. It gave me an appreciation of the effort that goes into different sports as well. You think GAA players train hard and they do. But when you look at what a boxer puts his body through, it's unbelievable. In team sports, you have 30 lads to bring you along when you are having a bad day, but some of these athletes get out of bed on their own early in the morning every day, do it two or three times a day, and there's not a word about it.

ALLENWOOD

I went to a primary school called Allen, about three or four miles from Allenwood. You were playing Division 6 or 7 in the Kildare Leagues, and then I went to school in the Patricians in Newbridge and suddenly I was a small fish in a very big pond. At 14 I made the team with the Patricians, which would have had Dermot Earley, Pádraig Brennan, Kenny Duane on it, all of whom went on to play with Kildare. I was very small at 14, and by the time I was 16, I wasn't able to make the school team. In the club, we amalgamated in the parish under the Na Fianna banner and again, at 15 and 16, I was struggling to make teams. But by the time I got to 17 or 18, I started to grow a little bit. I often look back and think that I worked at the skills at that age, because I didn't have the physical strength to get through games. I was depending on my skill levels to get a score.

It definitely was not a case of 'You're destined for greatness here'. It was the complete opposite. For a long time, I was just struggling to make Allenwood teams. I didn't even get a trial for Kildare at U14, U16 or minor level. I was starting to show maybe a little bit when I was U21. In 1995 we won a county title, when as Na Fianna we beat Sarsfields. That would have been seen as a bit of a shock at the time. I was playing corner forward and I had started to take the frees. I was starting to show a little bit of form and I got a trial at U21 with Kildare in my second last year of U21s. I was on the panel but I didn't make the championship panel - I was sitting up in the stand. Then in my last year U21 in 1999, I made the panel but didn't make the team the first day against Wexford. I was picked the second day against Westmeath and they beat us. So that was the totality of my underage career with Kildare.

1998 ALL-IRELAND FINAL

I was a supporter. That was a phenomenal time in Kildare from a supporter's point of view. It was unreal and the fact that we had Ken Doyle on the team, a player from our club and a relation of ours, it really added to the whole thing. You felt you had an insight into the team. But even at that stage, I was never, ever near that team. Paul Earley took over as manager of the Allenwood senior team in 1998, and in 1999, Allenwood got to a county final and that gave me a little bit of a platform. I was playing centre-half-forward for Allenwood and was doing ok.

Offaly had beaten Kildare in the Leinster Championship in 1999 and at that stage, there was no back door. Mick O'Dwyer was trying to get a bit of freshness into the panel, and after the county final I got a phone call to see would I come in. That was the start of it for me. But in 1998, it just wasn't on the horizon for me. I was only developing as a footballer. I was still very light. I think I was only about 10 stone when I came onto the Kildare senior team first. Not that I got much heavier! But I was only a slight fella.

The highlight of that year was winning the Leinster. I remembering trying to get out of the Hill and onto the field for the presentation. For the All-Ireland Final, I was on Hill 16. I was actually with Tadhg Fennin (future Kildare senior footballer) on the Hill, and we had been up in Dublin the night before - we wanted to get an early start to the whole weekend. At half-time, we were in a really good position and we were thinking, we'll kick on here and win this.

I remember just sitting on the Hill afterwards for the presentation. A lot of Kildare people had left but we stayed and we were saying, 'Definitely we're good enough next year'. It was bitterly disappointing because I knew the lads. I had been in school with Dermot Earley and Pádraig Brennan. My cousin Ken was on the team, and there was a couple of other lads I knew well on the fringes of the team. It was just that we had come so close and ended up being beaten by a very short head on the finish line. But I remember leaving Croke Park that day thinking we had the guts of a good team there and there's no reason why we can't get back. Unfortunately we never did.

SUPPORTER TURNED PLAYER

I definitely wanted to be out there on the field, like every other Kildare supporter. I suppose I felt that if I kept plugging away I might get an opportunity at some stage, but I just didn't really see myself in that bracket. I was doing ok for Allenwood, but I hadn't played any underage for Kildare, so it wasn't on the horizon for me. I wanted to get that opportunity but I was just plugging away with my club. But then I got the call.

On the Monday night after the 1999 county final, John Joe Walsh, who was a selector with Micko, rang me to see would I go in training. So I had a county final on the Sunday for Allenwood and went training with Kildare on the Tuesday. And obviously the day after the county final I had probably spent a couple of hours too long in the local. But I went in training anyway. And of course, Micko's trainings were legendary at that time. So he ran the guts out of us on the Tuesday night and he came up to me afterwards. He said, "Hard luck on Sunday. I wasn't expecting you to be here tonight." He said that to me after the training, so maybe he saw something then that said, 'This lad wants to be here.'

That was always a good sign with Micko. If you were willing to do what you were asked. If he had asked me to go to the corner and stand on top of my head, I would have done that. At that stage, I felt - 'Janey, I have come from being a supporter to playing with guys like Glenn Ryan and Anthony Rainbow.' They had been heroes of mine, and all of a sudden, I was in a dressing room with them. It was all a bit surreal.

That time, there were three league matches before Christmas and four after. I played in the first three before Christmas. I was taken off in the three of them, but I felt I was making progress. I got a couple of scores here and there. I got a bad ankle injury in the O'Byrne Cup, and was slow getting over that. Anyway, we got relegated that year and Declan Kerrigan, who had been one of our marquee forwards for years, retired. They tried a couple of lads at No.11, and then for one reason or another by the time championship came along, I was in. Coming up to championship, we had been playing A v B games in training, and I was on the B team, marking Glenn Ryan at No. 6. That was a good academy to get! Marking Glenn Ryan would improve you quickly.

'YOU DESERVE TO BE THERE'

Then, I'll never forget it. The Tuesday night before the Leinster quarter-final game against Louth, Micko had named the team, and like a rabbit out a hat, I was named at centre-half-forward. I remember lads coming up to me, shaking my hand saying, "Best of luck, delighted for you. You deserve to be there." I was just so taken aback. It was a bolt from the blue to be picked, and not only to be picked but to be picked in the key role of leading the attack.

So we went on and beat Louth, just about. I was taken off about 15 minutes into the second half. I hadn't gotten on the scoreboard and I didn't think I had played well. I thought to myself: "That's it now, that's the end of my career." But myself, Ronan Sweeney and Tadhg Fennin all made our debuts on the same day. Myself and Tadhg were taken off and we were coming out from under the Cusack Stand across the car park after the game and Micko said to us "Lads, you did very well. You will definitely be starting the next day." In fairness to him, he started us the next day and little did I think I would be starting every single one of them until I finished up 13 years later.

To go on and win the Leinster final that year after a replay with Dublin was an unbelievable experience. Probably because Kildare football was at an all-time high, I probably thought this was going to be the start of many. I probably didn't appreciate it as much as you would now. But that was special time. The fact that Micko was manager. This idol in the GAA who was here in Kildare and you were part of his plan. It was a big thing really.

MICKO

I will always have a soft spot for Micko because he gave me my start. He saw something that maybe other people didn't or wouldn't see. I was very impressionable coming in, and whatever Micko said was Gospel. If he said it, you did it. If he said 20 laps, you did it. Who were we to question Micko's methods? That's just the way it was.

Everything you have heard about Micko's trainings are true. You could start with a warm-up and a bit of stretching, and then you would do your laps. There wasn't much science to it. You could come back from your 10 laps then and he might say, "We'll do something different this evening." You'd see the faces lighting up, expecting some football and he'd say, "We'll do 10 in the other direction." That's the way it was.

We often did five and six miles across the Curragh. There was the gallops there where the horses used to go, and there were telegraph poles dotted along the way. You'd sprint between the poles and there could have been 2km in that. You'd jog two, sprint one, that kind of thing. He trained us very hard and there was an awful lot of running. Whatever about the physical aspect, the mental aspect was that if you could get through this, you would get through anything. Micko's training sessions were very tough - as tough as anything you'd meet on the field. But I got on very well with Micko. Also, I was of the physique where 10 laps wasn't a problem, and 20 laps wasn't a problem. I would have ran all day at that stage. As I say, I was 10 stone at the time!

LEAN YEARS

Micko left in 2002 and we got to a Leinster final that year and Dublin beat us. In 2003 we got back to a Leinster final and Laois beat us. Had we won either one of those, we might have gone on - success breeds success after all. But we were narrowly beaten and that didn't help. Pádraig Nolan took over when Micko left, and he was definitely unlucky in 2003 when Laois beat us. We were very close that day.

But then things went a bit pear-shaped for five or six years. Johnny Crofton came in, and we didn't make any inroads in Leinster at that time and we also had a very poor qualifier record in those years. But my memory is that we trained really hard. Pádraig Nolan and Johnny Crofton were unbelievably passionate Kildare football people. They put huge effort and huge resources into it, and they brought on a lot of footballers who went on to push harder by the time Kieran McGeeney came in. A lot of the key players in Kieran's time had been brought in initially by John Crofton, and to a lesser extent by Pádraig Nolan. So while they were barren years, it was a time when a lot of players were being nurtured. It was a learning curve for lads, and gave them an opportunity to see what it was all about.

MCGEENEY

I remember Dermot Earley phoned me to say that he had heard that Kieran McGeeney was our new manager. I was 28 or 29, so I was one of the senior lads on the team. The first time I met Kieran was coming out after the county final that year. That was the time he had been unveiled as the new manager. We would have all seen Kieran playing, and he had been the main driver of the Armagh ship. He was legendary. So we knew there was going to be no excuses. Whatever the problems were, he was going to get around them. And that's what he did.

NO EXCUSES

From an early stage, he would have put a lot of pressure on the players. "Why are you not succeeding?" If there was excuses there, he wanted rid of then. I remember we were supposed to do a lot of gym work at the time, but as we had to move around different leisure centres to do it, there were lads saying they were doing stuff that they probably weren't and that became an excuse. We needed to get something for ourselves and so we decided to try and raise a few bob. We organised a boxing night, and raised enough money for our own gym. So that was one excuse put to the side. Suddenly we had our gym. That was the type of stuff he did. There was always a way of getting around a problem. Let's get rid of excuses and make sure we have everything within our own control.

LEADER OR FOLLOWER?

No matter how good you were or how good you thought you were, he always looked for more. He had a philosophy that you had your leaders and your followers and that it was up to the leaders to lead. So if he felt you were a leader, then it was up to you to do things right and he put more and more pressure on you to go further and further.

I remember ahead of one league game, we were training in an A v B game. I was on the B team and it wasn't sitting too well with me. I had been nominated for an All Star in 2007 so I felt my game was getting to where I wanted it to be. I remember I said: "Kieran what's the story? It doesn't look I will be playing on Sunday." And he said: "No, you won't be." I said, "I'm training hard." I was looking for reasons. I got probably above my station and said: "Look, if there's six better forwards in Kildare than me, that's fair enough."

And he said, "That's your problem Johnny. Being the best forward in Kildare is no good to me. You need to be the best forward in the country." That sort of epitomised the level of where he was at. It forced me to think differently about my game, where I could raise the bar higher. That was something he did with several lads, telling them where they needed to be. He was very honest and he expected the same honesty from you to him. The players appreciated that honesty. With Kieran, you got it straight between the two eyes.

2010

It was a bit of a rollercoaster. We lost to Louth in the First Round of Leinster but we were in good shape. People often come up to me and say, even since Kieran left, 'Ah you should have concentrated on Leinster.' I would try to say that we did! We just couldn't win it. It wasn't a case of saying, 'Ah sure we won't worry about Leinster, we'll just go for the All-Ireland.' We worried very much about Leinster but we just couldn't win it. We got to a Leinster final in 2009 and pushed Dublin very hard. We felt we could give Leinster a good rattle the next year.

But unfortunately Louth beat us in our first game in 2010 and that was a big disappointment. Again, you're questioning everything. But we got back on the road. We were drawn against Antrim. Now, Dermot Earley Senior had passed away around the same time and our game was down for the Saturday evening of Dermot's funeral, which had been that morning. Dermot Junior was a big part of our team, he was the main player. He togged out that day and there was a big talk within the team that regardless of what happens here, we will win this game. Now it was gone from us for a period, but we ended up getting a draw. The emotion in Newbridge that day was like nothing I had ever seen. It was packed to the rafters. Everyone wanted to pay tribute to the Earley family for everything they had done in the GAA and in Kildare. If we had been beaten that day, it would have been a complete disaster. But we got away with a draw and we beat them easily enough in the replay...

DERMOT

I lived in the country and we often stayed back for training and matches and I was in the Earley house regularly. I knew all the family very well. Myself and Dermot got on very well all the way up. I knew what it meant to young Dermot, what his father meant to him and what the GAA connection was to them. But it was really more of a personal connection, yes. I talked a lot in the lead-up to the game in training. In the Thursday night before the game, Dermot obviously wasn't at training and I talked to the players at length about the importance of winning that game.

It was probably the high esteem that I held young Dermot in on a personal level. He was a very good friend of mine, as he was to a lot of the team. But we knew what a massive thing that was for Kildare and for the panel. We knew that if we could get a win in those circumstances it would bond the team and that it could be the start of something very important. Looking back on it, there was big pressure in that game for us not to lose. It was about a lot more than just football that evening.

THROUGH THE GAUNTLET

So we beat Antrim up in Casement and then we met Leitrim in Newbridge on a wet evening. We struggled for long periods and I think James Kavanagh got a goal in the second half and we kicked on then. Even at that stage though, we were stuttering along. Then on the Monday morning the draw came through and we were away to Derry, which was about the toughest draw we could have got. We had suffered a few trimmings in Derry over the years and it hadn't been a good hunting ground. But that one sort of kicked off our year. We went up to Derry and put in a huge performance and beat them very comfortably up there. Psychologically that was a big one to get over.

We beat Monaghan then, and then we were drawn against Meath in the All-Ireland quarter-final. We lost Dermot Earley in that game, whatever way he landed on his knee, he ruptured his cruciate. It was tough to see Dermot limping off after all he had gone through, and he knew straight away that he was in trouble. It was a tough blow for us and for Dermot, given everything he had gone through at that time. But we kicked on, played reasonably well and we got over that game.

SO CLOSE

So all of a sudden, having been leaving Navan a couple of months earlier in the depths of depression having lost to Louth, we were getting ready for an All-Ireland semi-final. Down were in a similar boat to ourselves in that they hadn't been there for a few years. But we felt we really had a great opportunity there to get to an All-Ireland final. We trained and prepared very well. The team was a in great shape and we genuinely went in with huge belief. I have often played matches with hope, but this was belief. We believed we would beat Down. Cork had beaten Dublin and we felt if we beat Down, we would give Cork a good game and that we could win the All-Ireland. There were actually pundits tipping us to win it, which was strange. Coming from the Louth game, it was strange to be tipped for the All-Ireland.

'FECK IT, THAT'S GONE'

It's something that I look back on with a bit of embarrassment. We got the free at the end and I can remember clearly I said to Pat McEnaney, "have we time to tap this over?" He said, "No you don't have time, you have to go for it." So I said to Rob Kelly - Rob has a huge boot on him - I handed him the ball and I said to him you may go for this. I told him to aim for the crossbar and give it everything he had. In fairness to him, it skimmed off Kalum King's fingers barely, and if it didn't it was in the roof of the net. The ball hit the crossbar, and came out near the Cusack Stand side. I tore out after it and I said to myself, when I get this, it's going straight back in. But as soon as I collected it, the final whistle went and it just hit me.

A realisation. Here I am, 32 years of age and I will probably never be here again. This is the chance gone. I was captain of the team and like every other lad, I had dreamed that I would be climbing the steps in Croke Park. I normally would be well able to keep my emotions in check, but it just came down on me then. Looking back on it, it's a little bit embarrassing. But I just felt, feck it, that's gone. It would have meant an awful lot to the group. And it would have been great for Kieran as well. He had pushed us really hard, and he deserved more than the Division II title he won in 2012, which was all he won with us in the end.

2011

I felt we were in a strong position in 2011 as well. We had run Dublin close in a Leinster semi-final and there was that free at the end where you thought, another day it might have bounced the other way for you. We had a bit of a feeling after that that the world was out to get us. So we ended up in another All-Ireland quarter-final against Donegal, and we definitely should have won that game. We were four points up in extra-time and we just had to play the game out and make sure we got the result.

Then we suffered. Tomás O'Connor hit the post and the ball rolled along the line. That would have put us seven up, but we felt we still had enough. Again though, we didn't get the rub of the green but in fairness to Kevin Cassidy, he kicked one of the greatest points you'll ever see in Croke Park, and when that sailed over the bar, you were sickened. You just knew it was not meant to me. But you get over those. Once the hunger comes back. For a couple of weeks, you think that if you never put on a pair of boots again that would be fine, but it's amazing how quickly you get back. When the call comes in October for a meeting, you're mad to get back, get in for a new year and get in with the lads again.

RETIREMENT

We would have pushed hard for the previous few years. We got word at home that my wife Siobhán was due twins, and as we had a girl already at the time, suddenly having three kids was going to be a different house to come into and a different house to be able to leave. I knew I was going to be needed a lot more at home. In fairness, myself and Siobhán sat down and talked about it, and she said you need to go back and see how it is. You don't want to be wondering what might have been.

I spoke to Jason and in fairness to him, he told me to take as long as I needed. I met him a few times to see how things were going, and I went back just before the Tyrone match, after a few games in the league. But in the end, it was a combination of a couple of things. One, the time that was needed. I had been the one for years who drove it into lads saying, "If you decide to get involved in this, it's all or nothing. It's not, I'm tired today, or I want to go for a pint today. It's total buy-in. "

And the big thing was, the same hunger and drive just wasn't there for me anymore. The flame burned out really. I came on against Kerry and then we went up to Derry. I came on against Derry, I was gone all weekend and that was the time I decided, 'Look, I can't give this the commitment it deserves, and I don't have the hunger to try and find ways around it.'

For me, it was time to go then. I spoke to Jason the week before the Westmeath game. I was honest with him and I think he appreciated that. I kind of half-expected him to say, go on home John, but he asked me to stick around for the week of the final game, because even though we had been relegated, it was an important game for confidence and to get a win. So I trained on the Tuesday and the Thursday, and I togged out for the game. I came on for the final 10 or 15 minutes, and it was nice to finish on the field in Newbridge in front of a home crowd, even though nobody knew I was going to announce it after the game.

It was satisfying to know as I walked away that I had given it everything. I didn't win as much as I would have liked, but there is a satisfaction to say that's what I had and I gave it my best shot. Some days it was good enough, and some days it wasn't, but I gave it my very best and I got massive personal satisfaction out of that.

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The Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour with John Doyle is scheduled to take place on Saturday, July 19 at 2pm. Admission includes a visit to the recently-refurbished GAA Museum, which is home to many exclusive exhibits, including the original Sam Maguire Cup, first presented to Kildare in 1928.

For further information and booking:

GAA Museum, Tel 01 819 2323E: tours@crokepark.ie or check out www.crokepark.ie/gaa-museum

Prices for the Legends Tours are as follows:

Adult EUR15, Child EUR9.50, Student (Under 16) and Senior EUR10.50, Family EUR40.00