FULL DISCLOSURE TO begin with it. This interview changed course once we realised a milestone anniversary was coming up.
The 42 had begun to fire off messages to former players, coaches and managers in an attempt to get a collated sense of what was going through their heads in the build-up to their first season in the Premier League.
It is a feeling plenty associated with newly-promoted Coventry City will have until they kick off away to champions Arsenal tonight, while a new batch of stars throughout the division will get a taste of the action this weekend.
Kevin Doyle was the first to respond. He was on a family holiday, relaxing by a pool, but was happy to contribute by reflecting on his debut campaign in England’s top flight with Reading.
“Everyone will have their doubts before the first game. You spend years being told the Premier League is faster, stronger, that it’s the best league in the world, all propaganda, perpetuated by the people involved in it.
“Does that mean it’s the best league in world? But you keep getting told it is. You have all that for years in your head, but you don’t know until you play in it.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be good enough, if I was up to it or would be found out. But you soon feel part of it and the same as them all once you get your first goal or first win.
“I had the feeling these people I was coming up against were superhuman but it’s not the case. You have to realise that quickly, though, or you won’t survive long.”
Kevin Doyle and Richard Dunne in action. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Then a penny dropped in tandem. The season Doyle was talking about was 2006/07. Twenty years have somehow been and gone.
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“F***ing hell,” Doyle says, the same sentiment echoing down the line from Dublin.
“It’s all old, historic information now, it doesn’t feel modern at all but the sense of excitement before that season is something I never had again.
“Not just for me but for most of us in that team who never played in the Premier League.”
Some of the memories that begin to flow give an indication of just how different a time it was.
Doyle was not a complete unknown quantity in the English game, given he scored 19 goals in the previous season as Reading finished with a record 106 points to earn promotion from the Championship.
During that season he rented an apartment and lived alone as his partner Jenny remained in Ireland. Stephen Hunt was in the flat above and by that point was going out with Doyle’s cousin, Joanne, who would soon become Hunt’s wife.
“My wife only came over the good times,” Doyle teases. “I can say that because she can’t hear me.”
Becoming a Premier League player would have felt like an impossibility when Doyle left St Patrick’s Athletic in the early 2000s. Before being reunited with manager Pat Dolan at Cork City, where his career would eventually take off, Dolan recalls numerous Sunday dinners with Doyle and his parents, Paddy and Bernie, to help coax him back to the game. They chatted about life and what the future might be.
“The only rule was to not mention football at all,” Dolan tells The 42.
Doyle would eventually catch the eye of Reading after being tipped off by Dolan, who also learned of a release clause in his contract in the region of €80,000. Nicky Hammond was Reading’s director of football – a rarity two decades ago – with chief scout Brian McDermott also despatched to watch Doyle. Both men were former colleagues of Dolan from their days at Arsenal.
Jamie Carragher of Liverpool battles with Kevin Doyle. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Dolan recalls how McDermott arrived for a game in Cobh and was so struck by Shane Long’s presence in the warm-up that he immediately wanted to bring the teenager over to England along with Doyle.
“Shane was a sub and didn’t even have to play,” Dolan says.
It was Doyle, who turned 23 early in the September of that first Premier League season, who hit the ground running. He scored after four minutes of his second game away to Aston Villa and would find the net eight times before Christmas.
He was level in the scoring charts with Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and was being rewarded in more ways than one. A sponsorship deal with Puma felt like a big deal. “I had enough gear to supply half of Ireland,” he says.
But each month a new style of boot would arrive and it was stipulated in the contract that he would have to wear the specific style. “You’d get away with it for a game or two but then have to change,” he says.
Not ideal when he was finding his groove in front of goal, and less so for a simple, more physical reason. “I have fat feet, so they did their best to help with the specifications,” Doyle says, laughing.
His trip down memory lane brings up “the animal, the absolute machine” that was midfielder Steve Sidwell, who earned a free transfer move to champions Chelsea at the end of the season. He now co-hosts a podcast with Peter Crouch.
Sylvestor Stallone at Goodison Park in January 2007/ Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Glen Little was the right-winger who “had the greatest body swerve and couldn’t run and had no speed but tore lads inside out because he was f***ing class”, while former striker partner Dave Kitson would later become a columnist for The Guardian newspaper and author as The Secret Footballer. “As soon his articles were sent around we soon worked out it was him,” Doyle says.
Doyle scored 10 goals by New Year’s Day of that first season and, much like Evan Ferguson with Brighton, he was rewarded with three improved contracts by Reading over an 18-month spell. There was talk of interest from other clubs but nothing materialised.
“I was treated well by the club and I’d have been shitting myself moving and having to leave when things were going so well.”
Doyle describes former club owner John Madjeski, who had sold his company which published Auto Trader for £260 million, as “a legend and gentleman”. He recalls his visits to the dressing room before every home game and onto the team coach for away trips to wish the players luck.
“He was friends with Cilla Black and brought her into the dressing room one time when we were all in the nip,” Doyle says.
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Heading into January ’07, Doyle was one of the form strikers in the division. “I couldn’t have scripted it any better.”
And it was in front of a Hollywood superstar that he suffered the worst injury of his career. “I ripped the absolute s*** out of my hamstring,” Doyle says. “It was only thre months out but it took a long, long time to trust it again and feel confident and pain-free, and allow myself to let go and sprint again.”
It was Goodison Park against Everton and Sylvestor Stallone was in attendance. “They were playing the Rocky music before the game, that must have been why I was pumped up.”
Another phone call to Hunt sheds some more light on the situation. “We took a new energy drink that was given to us about 30 minutes before the game. We looked at each other during the warm-up and our faces were tingling. It drove us both bananas. I remember thinking ‘f***, what is going on here? Our faces are tingling’. I saw Stallone walk by me and I thought I was going to hit him.”
What stopped him?
“Eh, my brain! It wasn’t my heart rate, that’s for sure.”
Doyle made it back for the final month or so of the season and hit the net three more times, although Reading finished eighth and missed out on European qualification by just a point. The Wexford native made enough of an impression to be nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year award alongside Cristiano Ronaldo (the winner), Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas, Aaron Lennon and Micah Richards.
Doyle had burst onto the scene in his own way during a season he will never forget.
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'You spend years being told the Premier League is the best in the world. It's all propaganda'
FULL DISCLOSURE TO begin with it. This interview changed course once we realised a milestone anniversary was coming up.
The 42 had begun to fire off messages to former players, coaches and managers in an attempt to get a collated sense of what was going through their heads in the build-up to their first season in the Premier League.
It is a feeling plenty associated with newly-promoted Coventry City will have until they kick off away to champions Arsenal tonight, while a new batch of stars throughout the division will get a taste of the action this weekend.
Kevin Doyle was the first to respond. He was on a family holiday, relaxing by a pool, but was happy to contribute by reflecting on his debut campaign in England’s top flight with Reading.
“Everyone will have their doubts before the first game. You spend years being told the Premier League is faster, stronger, that it’s the best league in the world, all propaganda, perpetuated by the people involved in it.
“Does that mean it’s the best league in world? But you keep getting told it is. You have all that for years in your head, but you don’t know until you play in it.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be good enough, if I was up to it or would be found out. But you soon feel part of it and the same as them all once you get your first goal or first win.
“I had the feeling these people I was coming up against were superhuman but it’s not the case. You have to realise that quickly, though, or you won’t survive long.”
Then a penny dropped in tandem. The season Doyle was talking about was 2006/07. Twenty years have somehow been and gone.
“F***ing hell,” Doyle says, the same sentiment echoing down the line from Dublin.
“It’s all old, historic information now, it doesn’t feel modern at all but the sense of excitement before that season is something I never had again.
“Not just for me but for most of us in that team who never played in the Premier League.”
Some of the memories that begin to flow give an indication of just how different a time it was.
Doyle was not a complete unknown quantity in the English game, given he scored 19 goals in the previous season as Reading finished with a record 106 points to earn promotion from the Championship.
During that season he rented an apartment and lived alone as his partner Jenny remained in Ireland. Stephen Hunt was in the flat above and by that point was going out with Doyle’s cousin, Joanne, who would soon become Hunt’s wife.
“My wife only came over the good times,” Doyle teases. “I can say that because she can’t hear me.”
Becoming a Premier League player would have felt like an impossibility when Doyle left St Patrick’s Athletic in the early 2000s. Before being reunited with manager Pat Dolan at Cork City, where his career would eventually take off, Dolan recalls numerous Sunday dinners with Doyle and his parents, Paddy and Bernie, to help coax him back to the game. They chatted about life and what the future might be.
“The only rule was to not mention football at all,” Dolan tells The 42.
Doyle would eventually catch the eye of Reading after being tipped off by Dolan, who also learned of a release clause in his contract in the region of €80,000. Nicky Hammond was Reading’s director of football – a rarity two decades ago – with chief scout Brian McDermott also despatched to watch Doyle. Both men were former colleagues of Dolan from their days at Arsenal.
Dolan recalls how McDermott arrived for a game in Cobh and was so struck by Shane Long’s presence in the warm-up that he immediately wanted to bring the teenager over to England along with Doyle.
“Shane was a sub and didn’t even have to play,” Dolan says.
It was Doyle, who turned 23 early in the September of that first Premier League season, who hit the ground running. He scored after four minutes of his second game away to Aston Villa and would find the net eight times before Christmas.
He was level in the scoring charts with Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and was being rewarded in more ways than one. A sponsorship deal with Puma felt like a big deal. “I had enough gear to supply half of Ireland,” he says.
But each month a new style of boot would arrive and it was stipulated in the contract that he would have to wear the specific style. “You’d get away with it for a game or two but then have to change,” he says.
Not ideal when he was finding his groove in front of goal, and less so for a simple, more physical reason. “I have fat feet, so they did their best to help with the specifications,” Doyle says, laughing.
His trip down memory lane brings up “the animal, the absolute machine” that was midfielder Steve Sidwell, who earned a free transfer move to champions Chelsea at the end of the season. He now co-hosts a podcast with Peter Crouch.
Glen Little was the right-winger who “had the greatest body swerve and couldn’t run and had no speed but tore lads inside out because he was f***ing class”, while former striker partner Dave Kitson would later become a columnist for The Guardian newspaper and author as The Secret Footballer. “As soon his articles were sent around we soon worked out it was him,” Doyle says.
Doyle scored 10 goals by New Year’s Day of that first season and, much like Evan Ferguson with Brighton, he was rewarded with three improved contracts by Reading over an 18-month spell. There was talk of interest from other clubs but nothing materialised.
“I was treated well by the club and I’d have been shitting myself moving and having to leave when things were going so well.”
Doyle describes former club owner John Madjeski, who had sold his company which published Auto Trader for £260 million, as “a legend and gentleman”. He recalls his visits to the dressing room before every home game and onto the team coach for away trips to wish the players luck.
“He was friends with Cilla Black and brought her into the dressing room one time when we were all in the nip,” Doyle says.
Heading into January ’07, Doyle was one of the form strikers in the division. “I couldn’t have scripted it any better.”
And it was in front of a Hollywood superstar that he suffered the worst injury of his career. “I ripped the absolute s*** out of my hamstring,” Doyle says. “It was only thre months out but it took a long, long time to trust it again and feel confident and pain-free, and allow myself to let go and sprint again.”
It was Goodison Park against Everton and Sylvestor Stallone was in attendance. “They were playing the Rocky music before the game, that must have been why I was pumped up.”
Another phone call to Hunt sheds some more light on the situation. “We took a new energy drink that was given to us about 30 minutes before the game. We looked at each other during the warm-up and our faces were tingling. It drove us both bananas. I remember thinking ‘f***, what is going on here? Our faces are tingling’. I saw Stallone walk by me and I thought I was going to hit him.”
What stopped him?
“Eh, my brain! It wasn’t my heart rate, that’s for sure.”
Doyle made it back for the final month or so of the season and hit the net three more times, although Reading finished eighth and missed out on European qualification by just a point. The Wexford native made enough of an impression to be nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year award alongside Cristiano Ronaldo (the winner), Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas, Aaron Lennon and Micah Richards.
Doyle had burst onto the scene in his own way during a season he will never forget.
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