The Supporter: Johnny Doyle is one of a kind

As generation gaps go, this one took some beating. At forty-six years young Johnny Doyle and James McGrath, twenty-four years his junior, were locking horns on the stand side in Hawkfield.

Over twenty-eight years on from on from a goalscoring debut as a substitute against Naas, Johnny was not yielding an inch to his younger opponent, who to be fair was giving as good as he got. He won’t have another chance to grapple with this legend.

Doyle threw himself into Saturday’s game with the usual unswerving commitment to the Allenwood cause.

Fellas his age should be goal-hanging in around the square or having a chat with the linesman on the wing. Not Johnny.

You see without the hard work, the tireless running, the launching into brutal contact, there was no Johnny Doyle. He didn’t know how to hide, or to mind himself when the hits kept coming. As they invariably did.

Don’t get me wrong, he was among the classiest footballers in the country and boy could he kick a point. That one against Meath where he gave the “put it up” signal almost before it left his boot.

The sideline he kicked down in Limerick when we were four points down. He almost single-handedly dragged us over the finishing line in that one.

Of course, the catch against Down will be among everyone’s favourite memory.

Kildare down by two with time running out. He told club-mate ‘Shorty’ McCormack to send the kickout in his direction. Up against the physical specimen that was Kalum King and a bunch of other bodies causing nuisance.

Johnny, giving away pounds and inches soars and gathers cleanly. Shouldn’t have even been a contest.

Typically modest, he explained it away to the Irish Examiner:

“I don’t know…you were just in the zone. We lost Daryl Flynn in that game after getting a bit of a belt so with him and Dermot gone, we were without our first-choice midfield. So, I just said to Shorty ‘just put this one out to me’ and in fairness to him he did. And I was lucky enough I ended in the right place at the right time.” Yeah, just lucky.

I was fortunate enough to see his first and last games for Kildare and now his last for Allenwood, though I would have missed his first.

That Mick O’Dwyer saw something in him to call him in along with Ronan Sweeney and Tadhg Fennin for the autumn 1999 league games, typifies the genius of the Kerryman.

Clearly few others saw the potential Doyle offered, maybe not even the player himself who admits to being shocked when O’Dwyer picked him for the Leinster Championship the following year.

“A bolt from the blue. I thought he meant Ken (his cousin).” Not false modesty either. Doyle had been overlooked by the county minor selectors and admits to crying in the car having been left off the starting fifteen in his last year at under-21.

His great school pal Dermot Earley consoled him, telling him with hard work it would work out.

A year later he was playing in a Leinster Final against the Dubs alongside his friend.

The league debut was inauspicious enough in the Marshes in Newry. Kildare won with a few new lads.

An Allenwood man was deemed to have “made an impressive debut” in this paper’s report. That was wing-back David Hughes, though.

Johnny “tried hard” (that trait never far away) but was replaced by Pat ‘Stretch’ Winters.

Johnny might have been surprised to start the next day, but start he did, scoring twice on his home debut in front of 5,000 in Conleth’s. “Doyle improved on his Newry performance,” said our reporter this time.

Again, that was Johnny. Improving. Always improving. He was clearly better at 25 than at 21, better still at 30 than 25 and at club level he produced feats of derring-do right up until last Saturday.

Indeed, only one man raised a score for Allenwood in that first half against Athy, and it was a typical Doyle piece of skill. A shimmy and straight between the posts from close to forty metres out.

Two more followed and he would have nailed the free he was about to take when withdrawn. I’d say a few words were had on the sideline.

Other memories. In those early games the impression, a bit like Anthony Rainbow before him was that this young fella was too light for senior football. Whispy and lean, a feather would knock him over surely.

But the work-rate. He worked like a dog, and there’s no other way of describing it. He worked on his skills as well, and he honed the art of free taking, though he had spells of the “yips”.

The good thing was he generally righted those issues during a game or at least on the training field before the next one. He’d rarely have two bad ones in a row.

And to go with that diligence, he was a hardy buck too. He’d bounce out of tackles, take whatever punishment was going, and deliver for club or county, even when for the latter in particular, things hit a fallow period after O’Dwyer’s departure.

In those years Doyle toiled away, delivering consistently on the big stage even if he couldn’t always drag his teammates with him. Championship top scorer on two occasions.

He of course thrived under the Geezer, a man cut from a neighbouring rock.

Allenwood is his first love of course. It’s in the genes. Dad Harry played forever, and between uncles and cousins the surname is writ large across the club’s history.

As for Kildare, Doyle has spoken of the love for the game he got from traveling with Harry and the likes of Ollie Crinnigan, Pat Mangan and Tommy Carew to Masters games as well as following cousins Ken and Dermot’s exploits with the county.

The love of Allenwood was fostered by mascot duties for the 1990 Intermediate final against Clogherinkoe. Fourteen years later he led from midfield, putting two poor misses behind him to deliver the score of the game as the club won it’s first and only Senior title.

As for last year? He played like a man possessed and that’s because he was. Possessed of a spirit that will never be forgotten.

Hard to believe he has finally called halt. Have no doubt about it though; there will be whispers in his ears over the winter.

If that is it, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to witness. Legend, pure and simple. And better still, a gentleman.

Cill Dara Abú