Updated at 12.38
MICHAEL DOYLE WILL be the first to admit that he hasn’t always had the most glamorous of footballing careers.
A trainee at Celtic along with fellow Irishman Liam Miller, Doyle never quite made the grade in the SPL, and frustrated by a lack of first-team action, he eventually moved to Coventry.
Doyle spent a number of relatively happy seasons in the Championship with the Sky Blues, working under respected managers such as Gary McAllister and Peter Reid, and was even made captain during the tenures of both Chris Coleman and Iain Dowie. Yet the midfielder ultimately found first-team football hard to come by under the former, and consequently went down a division to Leeds on loan, helping them earn promotion to the Championship during his season at Elland Road.
Yet despite playing an important role in Leeds’ success, the club opted not to sign Doyle — he thus went back to Coventry for a season, but despite getting a run of games early on from new manager Aidy Boothroyd, he was eventually left out of the first team once again, and subsequently moved to Sheffield United in the January 2011 transfer window. Nevertheless, after signing Doyle, the Blades were unable to avoid relegation from the Championship, and they’ve been lingering in League One ever since.
Whereas in recent years, Sheffield United have been consistently a top-half League One side, suffering heartbreaking play-off losses in two consecutive campaigns, this season threatened to turn into a disaster early on. The club at one point looked to be set for a season-long relegation battle, but since Nigel Clough replaced David Weir as manager, they have gradually turned the situation around, to the point where they now have an outside chance of promotion.
An unexpected bonus from their sudden reversal of fortune has been an incredible FA Cup run that has seen them reach the semi-finals of the competition. For a lower-league player such as Doyle, it is scenario that he barely dared to dream about. He was part of the Coventry team that dumped Manchester United out of the League Cup in 2007, and also got to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup with the Sky Blues in 2009, before his side were defeated by Guus Hiddink-era Chelsea, but in spite of these sporadic brushes with glamour, he has never quite experienced anything like the fervour of an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he tells TheScore.ie. “It’s massive for the club from where we’ve come at the start of the season. It’s going to be a great day and we’re all really looking forward to it.”
“You can feel it now. Everybody’s really looking forward to the game. It’s going to be great for the players and everyone involved with the club.”
(Michael Doyle and John Brayford [right] embrace after Sheffield United beat Charlton in this year’s FA Cup quarter-final)
Doyle admits that today’s game is the biggest of his career and is hopeful that himself and his teammates won’t be overawed by the occasion.
“I never thought I’d ever get this far,” he says. “As a lower league player, that’s sort of what you are — you never think it could happen. It’s such a big achievement for everybody involved — not even a Championship side, but a League One side.
“Once you get to the last 16, teams really start to take the cup seriously, as there’s only a couple of games until Wembley. So we’ve had to beat some good sides to get where we are — we’ve certainly earned our spots.
“So it’s a big achievement and we deserve it. From the way the season started, we’ve come a long way. I just hope on the day that we can give a performance similar to those which we’ve given in every other round of the cup from the first game with Colchester onwards. I hope we can go and give a good account of ourselves, because if we do, it’ll be a pretty tight game.”
The Blades’ success in the cup has exacerbated an already-rigorous schedule, with 46 games per season in the league alone — the cup run has consequently meant they’ve played an average of two games a week for the past month. Yet far from proving to be a distraction, the FA Cup if anything appears to have boosted their confidence.
Many smaller teams who’ve enjoyed phenomenal success in the competition in the past have complained that it’s distracted them from the league, yet the FA Cup triumphs have in fact coincided with an improvement in Sheffield United’s overall fortunes.
“The cup has kind of galvanised us,” Doyle says. “We’ve had some massive performances in the competition — Villa away, Cambridge away, and every time we’ve gone into those cup games, we’ve been pretty low in the league, but we just kept building, getting confidence and finding out about ourselves and what we’re good at.
“So it’s helped our season 100%. We’ve got a belief among ourselves and there’s a lot of competition for places in the team. The manager’s brought in a few of his own players and that’s helped as well. All those things have gelled. We’ve really kicked on — if we had an extra five games left in the league rather than what we’ve got now, I’d really fancy us to finish a lot higher up the table. We’ve been playing catch up for a very long time though and it’s cost us a bit as regards the play-offs.”
(Charlton Athletic’s Astrit Ajdarevic [left] in action with Doyle)
With five games to go and Sheffield United sitting in 11th, eight points behind sixth-placed Peterborough, the Dubliner acknowledges that promotion is “a big ask”.
“We’d need to win nearly every game and even then, you’d be hoping for other teams to slip up, but you never know.”
Indeed, their chances of promotion and FA Cup glory appear similarly improbable, yet Doyle barely hesitates when asked which of the two he’d prefer if given the choice.
“To win the FA Cup. We’d love to get promoted and we hope we will, but with the position we’re in at the moment, it’s going to be difficult. I’ll probably never get this opportunity again with the FA Cup — I can’t see another League One side getting to the semi-finals for a long time.
“It’s such a special competition, growing up in all Ireland, watching all those famous sides playing in it, the FA Cup final has a big tradition, so it’d be lovely to have the spotlight on us for a week. There’s already a big interest in the game with us being there, so I can only imagine what it’d be like if we got to the final.”
While there has been considerable hype around the game, at the time of the interview, Doyle explained that himself and the rest of the team had yet to properly sit down and talk about the fixture.
“There’d be little things we’d have a laugh and a joke about, but as regards the tactical side of things and what we’re going to do, we haven’t done any of it and I don’t think we will until after our game on Tuesday [which they subsequently won 1-0 against third place Rotherham].”
The Hull side whom they are set to face contains a sizeable Irish contingent, with Stephen Quinn a particularly good friend of Doyle’s. The game is also likely to be an emotional occasion for the 28-year-old winger, given that he made over 200 appearances for Sheffield United, having signed for them as a teenager from St Patrick’s Athletic, before joining Hull and helping the Tigers earn promotion to the Premier League.
(Hull’s Stephen Quinn is a good friend of Doyle’s)
“I’m quite close with Stephen,” he says. “We see each other regularly and keep in contact. I know Paul McShane not brilliantly but enough to have a chat with him. He’s a nice chap as well…. Obviously, I’m aware of the other [Irish] lads, but I don’t know them.”
Quinn and Doyle aside, the match will also be a big moment for Sheffield United boss Nigel Clough. Having been somewhat harshly sacked by Derby near the start of this season, Clough has impressed significantly since taking over at the Blades.
“He’s a brilliant manager and you only need to look at what he’s done with us. He’s come in, he’s picked us up and look at where we are — we’re in the semi-final of the cup and our league form has improved massively. And I think next year’s going to be a big year for the club, if we don’t manage to get into the playoffs this year. Maybe next year, we’ll be pushing for one of the top spots.”
And given the legacy of his father, the legendary Brian Clough, did Doyle have any preconceived ideas of what their new manager would be like?
“I knew from people who had played under him, they’d speak really highly of him. People like [Derby defender] Richard Keogh seemed to love playing for him, so it kind of gives you an idea right away that he’s a good manager. He’s brought a great team spirit into the squad and has brought a real togetherness. I think it’s definitely what we needed because of where we were when he first came in.
“I’ve been fortunate, I’ve worked with a lot of managers. Unfortunately, they’ve often got sacked, so I don’t know what they say about me,” he laughs. “But Clough would be up there among the best. I’m really confident that we can make a big impact on the league next year. We’ve only had a short space of time to work with him, but so far, I’ve really enjoyed playing under him.”
And while Doyle is currently relishing life at Bramall Lane, his career has had its fair share of disappointments as well. His brief and underwhelming Ireland career is a case in point. Despite being selected in a number of squads under both Brian Kerr and Steve Staunton, Doyle earned just one international cap in total, coming on as a late substitute in a 2004 friendly against Holland.
(Doyle pictured playing for the Ireland under-21s)
“I’m not really happy with it, to be honest. I only got five minutes. It was a bit disappointing. We went away and played a tournament against Nigeria and South Africa over in London. To not even get a half in those games, it was less than I deserved. I was playing almost 50 games a season in the Championship at that stage.
“I got five minutes against Holland, and it was great to get a cap, but I would have rather have gotten half a game so I could show what I was about. But that’s just how the manager at the time [Brian Kerr] thought — he didn’t want to give me the opportunity, but it’s international football, and the players that are around you are top drawer, so what can you do? And obviously, I’m privileged to have played for Ireland at 21s and B-level.”
He continues: “You can only turn up and do what you have to do. You can’t pick the team. Some [Irish] players in the Championship got a lot of caps, but I’ve nothing against them. I think the thing you have to understand as a player as well is that managers are always under pressure and at international level, they have to win every game. They get judged by those games they have the squad for and they only get the squad for a short time, so you’ve got to look at it from that side of things as well — they want to win every time they get the squad together.”
And speaking of management, now that Doyle is 32, does he think the type of leadership qualities that have earned him the captaincy at both Coventry and Sheffield United may soon help him to make a successful transition into coaching?
“I want to stay in the game, there’s no doubt about it,” he says. “I want to be involved with coaching, youth teams, kids or whatever. So I’ll see how I get on with the coaching and then possibly, I can go on into management. When I get home from work, watching football is all I do. So I feel I can offer something and hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to do that.”
Yet for now, Doyle is focusing on the more immediate future.
“I don’t even know if [winning] is even worth thinking about. I feel like this is the start of the FA Cup again for us. We’ve got one game to get back to Wembley for the final. It would be a massive achievement. Things have gone through the roof in Sheffield as it is, after getting to the semi-final. I’m sure the place would just go mental if we won.”
