We played out entire seasons in front of packed terraces on the old tarmac five-a-side pitch and one name more than any other rang out during our commentary as he crashed a volley into the top corner of the net – Doyle!
Rothbury City were an old T
hird Division club from the south side of the river Coquet and were more successful than our club – Rothbury United – who were struggling in Division Four. Our keeper was called Jim Cannon.
We sometimes met City in the Milk Cup and Doyle was at once both our chief tormentor and a legend.
I've got old schoolbooks full of seasons. We kept the scores, scorers, attendances, league tables – and it was Jimmy Doyle that wracked up the goals. Hat-tricks, doubles, headers, low curling shots, Doyle was the original goal-machine.
He was based a bit on our boyhood hero, the real Rothbury number nine Eddie Sutton. 'Six-foot two, eyes of blue, Eddie Sutton's after you.' Eddie had a powerful shot. So powerful, some claim, that he battered the old tree behind the goal into submission and it had to be chopped down.
But when he caught one and it flew in, shaking the rainwater off the roof of the net as it ballooned home, no goalkeeper could stop it. Eddie would smash past defenders like they weren't there to put the ball into the net. Tough, harder than concrete.
Doyle was like that. He could drill them in from distance, or poach a tap-in after it had come back off the post.
But there were rules to the scoring. It was a mutual understanding that if it went straight down the middle it was saved by the invisible keeper.
Putting one in off the underside of the bar or tucking it right in the corner was a definite goal – but you were really at the mercy of the commentator.
If you put one away and reeled away doing a crowd roar, lapping it up, and the commentator said the linesman had a flag raised and you were offside, that was it. No goal.
Some games could run for ages, others were over in a couple of minutes. Then straight to the little blue lined book to record the statistics in biro.
If there was crowd trouble behind the goal we would run out round the back and re-enact the violence. Throw plastic bottles and chant. All two of us. Though sometimes three or four. Hooliganism was all part of the game when we were kids.
As were big imaginary strikers who could net hat-tricks named Jimmy Doyle.
