St. Patrick's Athletic striker Eoin Doyle joined Football Saturday this weekend.
Eoin Doyle has a storied career in English football so it's no surprise he proved to be a great interview.
Before recently returning to the League of Ireland, Doyle played for a plethora of clubs across the different divisions of English football.
Doyle has plenty of experience on the field, but when he joined Dan McDonnell, Johnny Ward and John Duggan in studio, he proved to have great stories off the field too. One of those stories involved Cardiff City and notable club owner Vincent Tan.
Cardiff signed Doyle in 2015 after he scored 32 goals in 69 games for Chesterfield the prior season, but the move itself proved to be more exciting than his time at the club.
"[Vincent Tan] backs the club. You have to hand it to him he backs the club," Doyle said.
"He's definitely mad. When I first signed, they actually gave me an extra year by accident.
"Thanks very much, lads."
Incredulously, Dan McDonnell in studio had to ask Doyle to explain how he got an extra year by accident.
"I was in the car on the way down [to Cardiff]. I get the phone call off my agent.
-Will you sign for these wages?
-Yeah I'll take that.
-On two and a half years?
-Can you get me an extra year?
-No, they won't stretch it. It's two and a half.
"Alright. Go on yeah, it's a lot more than I'm on now. Blah blah blah. I get down there, the deal's done. It's signed. And then I get a message off my cousin later that night saying 'Congratulations, three and a half year deal.' And I was like 'What? No, two and a half year.' I went looking onto twitter and there's Cardiff's twitter.
"Eoin Doyle is signed to such and such...I'm doing the maths in my head. 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. I'm trying to go through it all. I thought 'oh my god that's three and a half years, I can't believe it.'"
Doyle called his agent to confirm the details of the contract. His agent immediately shut him down, simply saying "no" when he pointed out the details. Doyle implored him to go through the contract again and check everything.
"He rings me back saying 'I can't believe this, say nothing to nobody.'"
It didn't exactly work out for Doyle in the end, "I was out of there in six months," but at least he got a good story out of it. Doyle joined Preston North End before eventually landing with Bolton Wanderers in 2000. He found a home at Bolton and was a fan favourite. But the appeal of returning to Dublin pushed him towards St. Patrick's Athletic ahead of the start of this season.
The League of Ireland has Damien Duff to sell this season, but Doyle is also a huge addition on the field. St. Patrick's Athletic bringing him in and Shamrock Rovers bringing Jack Byrne back raises the profile of the league, so fans have bigger names to go and watch.
Doyle previously played in Ireland before moving to England, so he can feel the difference in quality. He notes that was a big reason he returned, because the quality of player is much higher now than it was 10 years ago. If you're interested in following more League of Ireland football, you can tune into Off The Ball's Friday Night Late Night each week on our twitter account.
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