NEXT WEEKEND, JOHNNY Doyle had planned on lacing his trainers up for what would have been his fourth Dublin Marathon.
Instead, he will be on a grass pitch, plotting for the downfall of Westmeath’s St Malachy’s in the Leinster Intermediate club football championship.
On Sunday, he was in midfield for Allenwood, where he kicked three points and won Man of the Match in the county Intermediate final against Castledermot. At the age of 45.
Another fact to scare you. He made his adult championship debut for his club 27 years ago, in 1996.
A shout out for all you middle-aged men out there; this is how it’s done.
When he came into the Kildare senior set-up, he was barely much more than nine stone. He wasn’t a devotee of the gym but he did it and as he stretched to a final height of 6’ 1”, his weight got up to 11 and a half stone.
And if he had have stood on scales on Sunday morning, that’s exactly the reading he’d have gotten. Eleven and a half stone. Or near as dammit. Maybe slightly more after the effects of Monday.
Monday club in full swing @allenwood_gfc pic.twitter.com/O2E29f3JEP
— John Doyle (@johnnydoyle78) October 23, 2023
“I think the thing that I didn’t carry extra weight was easier on the knees and ankles and hips. Touch wood, they are all sound. I have never pulled a hamstring, never broken a bone. I don’t know what’s in the water around Allenwood, but it has been good to me, anyway!” Doyle laughs as he contemplates letting it all go for a day. Certainly considering the Monday Club, anyway.
As if to just remind himself he is at the coalface of sports science as a Kildare senior team selector, he adds, “Towards the last couple of years, I used to do a little bit of yoga. Just for something to stretch out the body.
“But I would be telling you a lie if I told you I was in a gym. I did plenty of it when I had to, but since I finished with Kildare I don’t think I have lifted a weight.
“I never bought into it too much. My rehab was out kicking a few balls and that’s what worked for me. I wouldn’t recommend that for all, because at the top level, strength and conditioning is huge.”
No injuries is undoubtedly a critical reason why Doyle still loves the sport enough to be playing. For any ageing footballer, the love remains but the body betrays the years. When that accepted rite of passage never actually happens, then he never actually found a reason to stop.
“No matter where I go or who you talk to when football talk comes around, they might ask if you are still playing. And the one thing they always say is, ‘play as long as you can, because nothing replaces playing,’” he explains.
“So everybody can’t be wrong, and I never met anybody told me I should give it up.
“Allenwood train on the same nights as Kildare and I would have said to Noel Mooney, who is the manager here, I say, ‘I am here to help. If that’s waterboy, or you think I have five minutes in me.’
“But I train away on my own. I do some of the running with the Kildare lads when we are doing a bit of running.
“And Noel says it is a deal. Every time I turn up, he plays me and the lads know that. I don’t fall out with anyone if I am not on, I am there to help and that’s the way of it.”
Family commitments are another factor. Doyle is the father of three girls; Sarah the eldest at 11, with twins Orla and Amy at 9. All three are cracked on football. His wife Siobhán was a committed St Lawrence’s women when they met, but now does her bit for Allenwood.
As a child, Doyle had three sisters but no brother. As soon as he grew to a height to get out from under his mother’s feet, his father, Harry, had him down at the Allenwood pitch for senior training every Tuesday and Thursday, kicking balls back out to the adults.
“That was my upbringing. Everything was football; going to Kildare matches and coming home disappointed,” he laughs.
“Then you would go to Allenwood. It was different times, and there was always a great feeling the around championships. There used to be the saying that if you were still in the championship come the August weekend, you were going well, because we had a lot of bad days, knocked out of the championship in the first round.
“I know it’s the same for a lot of people, but I was reared in the club. Anything that was going, my dad was involved in.”
In 2004, Allenwood won their first and only Kildare senior championship. Twenty years on, they will be back at that level. Doyle’s relationship with his club is a Love Supreme, but he gave them huge respect.
When they struggled to field for some league games, he never felt any pressure than to continue to represent the club with Kildare. When the time came to repay it though, he didn’t let himself down.
“I always had a thing in my head that no matter how sick I was, or how hurt, how sore when Kildare would lose in the championship, I would be at training on the Tuesday night. No doubt,” he states.
“I would spend the Monday in the pub, licking my wounds. And come Tuesday I would give the boots a clean. Now, I mightn’t have done the full session, but that was my thing. Show up on a Tuesday night for the club.”
As for holidays?
“They were done after the club was done. I never finished with Kildare and went on holidays.
“That was my thing. I gave the club the exact same respect as I gave the county and people said to me about finishing up entirely when I finished up with Kildare. But I was never going to do that. I was just back among my own people.
“To be still there at my age, it is special. I have to say.”