John Richards’ tribute to Mike Doyle
Tuesday 28th June 2011, 5:00PM BST.
Wolves great John Richards today paid tribute to former Manchester City captain Mike Doyle.
Doyle died yesterday at the age of 64 from liver failure after several weeks in Tameside General Hospital in Manchester.
Richards and strike partner Derek Dougan enjoyed some tremendous battles with Doyle and his City defensive partner Tommy Booth in the early 1970s, including the 1974 League Cup final, when Wolves won 2-1 at Wembley.
And the former record Wolves goalscorer was full of praise for the man and player that was Doyle, who played over 550 games for City and won the League, FA Cup, two League Cups and the European Cup Winners’ Cup as well as five England caps.
Richards said: “It’s very sad news. He was a very difficult opponent and a very intelligent player. The City team of that era was one of the best in the country.
“Mike captained that team so he was a leader on the field. Myself and ‘the Doog’ used to have quite a few tussles with him and Tommy Booth, we played in some cracking games.
“In fact at Wembley, I remember swinging an arm into his face midway through the second-half after he blocked my way.
“But typically of the man, he brushed it off – he was that tough I don’t think he felt it!
“Nowadays a player would have gone down like a sack of coal and I’d have probably got sent off.
“We usually tended to do quite well against City and I remember one game at Molineux where we beat them 5-1 , ‘the Doog’ got a hat-trick and I scored two.
“But Mike was always hard and fair and not nasty – you knew it was going to be an honest encounter and he was a top class player.
“He was good company after games too – I always found him to be very pleasant and easy going.
“It was a mark of how good he was that he played for England at a time when Bobby Moore, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Roy McFarland and Colin Todd were playing.”
Doyle also played for Stoke and Bolton in a 19-year career, before working as a sports representative for Slazenger.
By Tim Nash
UK Sport
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