To any Manchester United fan who remembers the mighty cross town battles with Manchester City in the late 60’s and early 70’s, today is a very sad day indeed. Former City and England international Mike Doyle has died at the relatively young age of 64 after being treated for liver failure. Doyle was part of the City team that won the English League title in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969, and the European Cup Winners and League Cups in 1970. He scored City’s first goal in the 1970 2-1 win over West Bromwich Albion and skippered their 1976 League Cup winning side against Newcastle United – their last major honour until they won the FA Cup last month.
He is the third member of City’s successful team of that era to pass away in the past nine months following the deaths of coach Malcolm Allison last October and Neil Young, the scorer of the winning goal in the 1969 FA Cup Final, in February. Doyle was a true City legend. Truly Reds sends its sincere condolences to the Doyle family – may Mike Rest In Peace
A sad day indeed…he was in the first Stoke team I remember 500 odd games for City first though.No mean feat that especially when you think about how dissloyal many of todays players are.R.I.P Mike Doyle :'(
Nice gesture.
Great man, City legend, he will be missed.
A very nice tribute from the dark side there Frank. I just wish we had more like him. You’ve had Gary Neville recently and much as the fella gets on me tits he is exactly what the fans want and I respect that a lot. Doyle was the same for us. No messing about, he called a spade a spade and he never hid his emotions. The world is at a loss with his passing.
On a more general point – if i was a talent spotter for any big club I would set a quota of a couple of local lads (literally in the city) that have a real passion for the club. I’d place extra emphasis on bringing them on as what they may lack in skill they’d make up for with dogged determination and that can really get the fans going.
Wonderful comment Bob and cannot agree more. Doyle was for City what Red Nev was for United in the last few years and let’s hope that there’s more of it. Passion is what’s sadly missing from today’s game, love to see more of it!
Exactly Frank – passion is everything. I don’t know why the marketing men can’t see the long term worth in it. Look at Barca – the local connection is a major part of the reason why they are so strong. The foreign players don’t want to let the fans down. With your history you probably have more loyalty than us but you only have to look at the obvious examples of Rooney and Tevez to see how things are changing. There is no way Doyle or Neville would drag their clubs through the mud like that, no way.
Extra emphasis should be placed on bringing the local lads through. Manchester can produce them.
Frank, thanks for the generous and warm-hearted tribute to Mike Doyle. Took me right back to the good old days when our fine City had the best two footballing sides in England, days which I think may be imminent once more.
Of the City team of that era Corrigan, Pardoe, Doyle, Booth, Oakes, Lee, Summerbee, and Neil Young were all born in Manchester or within 30-odd miles of the City and I’m sure the United team was similarly composed. Mancunians have always had what the late Tony Wilson described as ‘an excess of civic pride’ and it would be great to think that some of this might rub off on the blow-in footballers who come to live there. But, given that the modern day footballer is pretty divorced from reality, I think it unlikely.
We do have foreign players who seem to have adapted well – Kompany, Zabaleta, Silva, DeJong in particular. I’m sure you can name United players who have, too. We just need more of them.