How Henry handed Doyle day to remember
“I’m getting married in the summer now so I can thank Thierry Henry for that,” says the Wolves and Ireland striker with a smile. Before the play-off against France in Paris, Doyle and his girlfriend Jenny Harney were planning to get hitched next year but, after the French striker’s illegal intervention, a longer summer break than he’d hoped for now beckons for Doyle and so the couple have brought forward their nuptials to a June date in Limerick.
Meantime, the Wexford man continues to live with the fall-out from one of the most controversial episodes in Irish football history although, after all the hysteria of recent months, he has a refreshingly candid and non-judgmental take on Henry’s infamous hand ball.
“If I was sitting here with you and we were going to the World Cup and I had done that, we’d all be pretty happy, wouldn’t we?” he points out. “I’d probably be a hero. And everyone in Ireland would be like, ‘a good Irish chancer, fair dues, he got away with it’.”
Doyle admits that, as a professional footballer, the healing process is probably quicker for him than for all those who were forced to watch the painful events in Paris from the stands or armchairs.
“I’m lucky to play twice a week which helps to put it behind me but it’s probably harder for supporters who have longer to think about it and dwell on it,” he reflects. “But come the summer, when the World Cup is on, then it’ll hit home again. It won’t be nice watching it. I said before that I wouldn’t but, I’ve watched every one since I was young, so I’m sure I will. It’s the highlight of football, it’s exciting and, even if I’m depressed, I’ll end up watching it.”
And will he be rooting for anyone but France or is he bigger than that?
He laughed: “I hope I’m bigger than that but I’m sure, underneath it all, I’d like to see a few own goals and stuff like that. Or someone throwing the ball into the net.”
And, of course, Ireland could yet get a chance to gain their own revenge should the European Championship qualifying draw in Warsaw next month come up with the right permutation.
Doyle said: “I’d be nice to get France. It’d be nice to get England. I’ve never played against England. Either would be good. I’d be confident whoever we get. We were close to qualification this time. We played big teams like Italy and France and did well against them. We were beating Italy up to the last minute (in Croke Park) and had a chance to beat them away from home. Two draws against Bulgaria. All those results could have gone the other way, of course, but they could have gone our way as well. Now, I think everyone is more confident, especially after the way we played in the French game. That was probably the best we’ve played as a team, the best I’ve experienced.”
Which statement inevitably brings up those increasingly discredited reports that senior Irish players had rebelled against Giovanni Trapattoni’s orders on the night. In these pages, just before Christmas, Stephen Hunt described that conspiracy theory as “one hundred per cent a load of bollocks” while Doyle is simply dumbfounded by the notion that the players would have taken matters entirely into their own hands.
“Haven’t heard that one before, honestly,” he says. “And it’s not true. I don’t think anyone could go to Mr Trapattoni and tell him how he wanted to play. I don’t think he’d be in the team long. He’s a manager that’s extremely respected and has all the medals and success to go with that. So there’s no question of us questioning how we’d play or going to him like that. There was a point before the away game where – because we obviously needed to score – he made a point of us pressing higher up the pitch. Win the ball off them up the pitch rather than sit off a bit. And that helped us get on the front foot. And I don’t know of any of the lads going to him to make that point. That was his decision.”
Doyle says his anger after Paris was directed not at Thierry Henry but at the match officials who missed the striker’s blatant foul. Yet, even though it cost Ireland the chance of World Cup qualification, the Wexford man would still not be in favour of the introduction of a video referee to football.
“I make my living from football, you journalists make your living from football and we need stories and arguments and issues like that,” he argued. “It’s one of the reasons that there is so much passion in football. Yes, in the short run it hurts me massively not to go to a World Cup but in the long-run, for me as a footballer and for all those people paying loads of money to watch football and have it on their channels, if we didn’t have all that controversy it would make it very boring.”
n Kevin Doyle was speaking at the announcement that cable television company Chorus ntl are including the ESPN sports channel as part of its Digital Max and Select Extra TV packs. To promote the move, ESPN will be broadcast free to all Chorus ntl digital customers from 6am this Friday to 6am the following Monday.
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