Kevin Doyle on the game of his life and how playing in Europe for Cork City shaped him

July 11, 2004, Uefa Intertoto Cup, Turner’s Cross

Cork City 1 NEC Nijmegan 0

THE game that stands out for me would be when we played NEC Nijmegen at home in Europe in the UEFA Intertoto Cup.

We played really well and from a personal point of view I scored. But we won the game and we deserved to win as well. We had a fabulous bunch of players. It was a full house and a sunny day.

We matched them against a club that would have been in terms of facilities and budget, way ahead of us. But we were as good or better than them and beat them.

Personally, getting on the scoresheet as well gave me a lot of confidence. It made me realise we can match them or play against anyone on our day and beat them. Satisfying and confidence-boosting.

NEC Nijmegen were playing in the Dutch League and doing quite well. So, it gave all of us a big confidence boost, we went on then and won the league the next year.

I think we beat Malmö before that. But the whole little summer spell, there was a summer spell where we won some big games. I remember Turner’s Cross was sold out for all of them.

I have a picture of the Nijmegan goal, so my memory is quite clear of it. I think my mother has a picture up in the house. My memory of it was, I think I was playing on the wing as well, I don’t think I was playing centre-forward. Someone swung the ball into the box, I think it was George O’Callaghan, and I thought that I was going to be given a free against me.

That is my memory, thinking I scored a header but I was up above a fella on his shoulders basically heading the ball in.

BELIEF

I remember thinking the ref is going to give a free here for this. It wasn’t a foul, but he didn’t jump and I did. So it looked as if I was after getting a boost up on his shoulders and seeing the ball go into the bottom corner.

Pat Dolan was managing at the time. He’d have bigged us up to be superstars and that we were way better than them. We would have known everything about all of their players.

He would have had a dossier done on Nijmegen. So we would have really been drilled, drilled into us that we were as good as them or better than them and that we deserved to beat them. So we had no fear.

I think the Cork City fans thought we should win those games or believed we could win them as well. 

The club was in a good spot at the time regarding players, our squad and the support that we used to get. We always went into games thinking we were going to win them.

Pat Dolan’s best quality was not making you feel inferior, trying to boost you up to make you feel the best player in the world for all of us at that time; that Cork City was as good as any club in Europe, that we had a right to be there and should win. It wasn’t a case of going there to enjoy the game. He put a lot of pressure on us to win those games and not winning wasn’t good enough.

So, that was how he managed us. From the club and Pat’s point of view, we went and played those games. We had good facilities, we trained in good places and we stayed in good hotels. Everything was done so that we didn’t feel inferior in any way. So I think that was a real strong point from Pat.

Going to somewhere like Nijmegen, Malmö or Nantes, places like that where they have better stadiums... I suppose you could feel you don’t belong. But we certainly didn’t feel like that when Pat was managing us.

I vaguely remember just being more interviewed by national journalists that you maybe normally wouldn’t get interviewed by. I remember people that would have not really known about my League Of Ireland career, all of a sudden seeing and reading about it, taking notice. That was the same for all of the squad.

Those games too, from a League Of Ireland perspective, gave us a lot more confidence and a feeling that we were the best team in the country. There can be a lot taken from those games if they go well.

Why this game means so much to me; We beat a really good team and I scored. It sort of broke a barrier in my brain that I could do this from a professional point of view going forward. That I felt good enough in this game and was playing well, that I could go on and have a good career as a footballer.

That was sort of a mental barrier maybe I broke in that game from a personal point of view. That is why it stands out in my mind. I still have a picture of me sitting on a fella’s back and seeing the ball head back into the far corner.

I was young and full of confidence. I used to play on the right wing when I first went to Cork for the first season and a half, two seasons. It was only in that last bit of the league winning season, the first 10 games when I started moving up front.

Much of the time I was between wing and up front depending on who was fit or not. With the list of strikers that we had, there was a lot of competition for places to play centre-forward. So when I did go up front, I got on a good run of form and started to score a lot of goals. When things are going well, it makes it very easy.

I had good players around me though to help me. I played up front with the likes of Neale Fenn, George O’Callaghan sort of moved into a central midfield role. But we were a very attacking team. We had good wingers like Liam Kearney and Roy O’Donovan, who used to play right wing a lot of the time.

We had players who made it very easy to be a centre-forward. Everything was exciting. It was about attacking football, creating chances and then whoever was up front trying to take them.

We always got good crowds at Cork when I was there anyway. So this was just a little bit extra and you got more national attention I suppose.

The press were a bit more interested. It was a chance to show on a stage outside the League Of Ireland and if you were a young player who dreams of playing for the international side or moving across the water, it was a chance to show your ability and what level you might be at to test yourself as well.

That was a big plus of playing in those games. I know from my point of view going to join Reading, that was one of the reasons they went and signed me. That was because they went ‘listen he played well in those games and had a decent ability’.

SHOWCASE

Not ideal for Cork City and Cork City fans that players are trying to showcase themselves. But it is mutually beneficial I suppose, we do well for ourselves and well for the club as well.

We were a professional full-time club. We trained no differently to any team in the world. We trained every morning. We had decent facilities and we didn’t want for anything. There were good players, a young squad and an exciting squad.

When you go through the players on that team, I am not going to name them out because I will probably forget and miss someone. But if you go through that team and the subs even with the quality we had, I might be slightly biased but I think that was as strong a League Of Ireland as you would have seen in a long, long time.

A good few lads went on to get international caps from that Cork City squad. There are a lot of lads still playing from that squad and had long careers. There was fabulous ability.

John O’Flynn and George O’Callaghan were two who stood out for me when I signed for Cork, they were quality young players in the league and exciting young players.

Just even from a centre-forward’s or striker’s perspective, there was Roy O’Donovan, myself, George O’Callaghan, John O’Flynn, Neale Fenn, Denis Behan as well. I don’t know if I am leaving anyone out, but there was a real selection of players and really good players to choose from. Even getting in the team at the time was hard work.

We got great support. At the time Turner’s Cross and Cork was the best place to play in Ireland. The biggest club and the best support, a full- time club with the best players.

At the time that was where anyone who wanted to be a top player in the League Of Ireland, I thought we were the biggest club, with the best set-up. The best coverage from a press point of view, with the radio, the local newspapers and everything.

We were treated correctly as professional footballers. At the time I am trying to think, there was nowhere that could match Cork City for a full house, for crowds and for noise. For everything that goes with being a professional footballer, it had it all.

As a young player, it meant that when I moved to England maybe a year later, it wasn’t such a big jump for me mentally because I was used to playing in front of big crowds dealing with pressure. Because there was pressure playing for Cork City. I think there was more pressure playing for Cork City maybe than some of the bigger clubs in Dublin because it was more intense living in Cork.

Everyone knew about Cork City and the players and would be putting pressure on you to play well and perform. So I felt it was the most of what it would be like to play in England playing for Cork City, in how you are treated and how everyone sort of knows you away from football as well.

It prepared me anyway. It gave me a great grounding and learning experience to the life as a professional footballer. More probably the pressures that go with it. That is brilliant and what you want, to feel under pressure. You want every result to count, people to question you and support you brilliantly when things are going well. That is what it was like at Cork City.

We were a really tight knit group. We used to socialise together and do a lot of stuff together. We were young lads living in Cork. I was living on College Road right in the thick of it for my two and a half-three years there. It was great fun and good camaraderie on and off the pitch at the time.

I played for St Pat’s in Dublin and they are a very good club. But it wouldn’t have prepared me like Cork City did. 

As I said the pressure, the local newspapers, the journalists, the local radio stations, the crowds at the game. Everything at Cork City sort of prepared you in a slightly smaller scale, but still in a proper way for my future career.

It meant that going to Reading wasn’t nearly as daunting. I’d done that at Cork City and played in big games. I played in a professional set-up. Then I loved living in Cork. I was very lucky, I had college friends down there as well.

DEVELOPMENT

Most of those lads, they went on to have fairly good careers afterwards. Some better and some worse, but they all played for a long time. We were a good bunch of players.

We are probably biased, but that group of players was as strong as you would imagine you could have in a League of Ireland. When I went to Reading, I was doing the same training. I was probably fitter than most of them to be honest and probably stronger

It made it seamless for me. I was 21 years of age going to a club and I was not a kid going over. So I had a lot of experience under my belt even at 21 and big games in Ireland.

Through Cork City and playing well there I got into the Ireland U21 squad. It was a lot of development went on in those few years while I was at Cork City personally.

Still, my argument with a lot of people would be... why would you go anywhere at 15 or 16, or look to go anywhere? Why wouldn’t you stay? 

I know it is not for everyone and some lads are exceptionally talented maybe at 16 that it works for them to go to another club in another country.

But for me it was the perfect route. Cork City prepared me so well and it gave me a fabulous three years. I wasn’t just there as a stepping stone. I was there to play and be a part of it for three years. My move to England came about because it went well.

It was the ideal scenario.

I am actually disappointed at how Cork are now. I was looking at the League Of Ireland Premier Division for 2022 and basically seeing every club is Dublin or north of Dublin. There is no club in the Premier Division south of the M50 basically.

I don’t know what the story or situation is now, but I hope Cork City can get back. The League Of Ireland needs Cork City because if they are doing well, it just makes the league having them there.