| A DIFFERENT LEAGUE  They
made their English Championship debuts in the same season but now Irish
strikers Kevin Doyle and Barry Corr are at opposite ends of football’s
spectrum. Peter Foley looks at how and why their paths have diverged so
dramatically.
With the English soccer season entering its decisive stages, Irish players
across Britain have different priorities, hopes and dreams for the months
that lie ahead.
Irish strikers Kevin Doyle and Barry Corr are the same age and both made
their league debuts within five weeks of each other in last year’s
English Championship campaign.
Doyle started for Reading and went on to become top scorer in the Championship
as the Madjeski Stadium boys strolled to the title and Premiership promotion.
Meanwhile Corr who grew up in Wicklow just 50 miles from Doyle’s
homeplace in Wexford made his league debut when coming on as a substitute
for Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough.
While Kevin went on to become the Championship’s leading scorer,
Barry’s progress was hampered by injury, restricting him to nine
starts and the same amount of sub appearances as the Owls squeezed out
of the relegation places.
A new manager at Sheffield Wednesday saw Barry drop down the pecking order
and he started looking for a loan move to help rebuild a career that was
once deemed promising enough to see him train with the Leeds first-team
squad when the Elland Road outfit were genuine title contenders.
Fast forward a season-and-a-half.
Kevin Doyle scores the winner for the Republic of Ireland against Slovakia
in front of a packed and passionate Croke Park crowd while Barry Corr
is on loan at Swindon in the English League’s basement division.
Two goals in his first two games for the Robins ensured the media’s
attention has swerved his way for the first time.
The niggling back injury he picked up on his debut was bothering him but
Swindon are in the thick of a promotion race and this is Corr’s
third club of the season.
However he has no contract for next year and is fast running out of games
to prove his worth.
This is the soccer world’s last-chance saloon so the young Wicklow
striker has little choice but to play through the pain in the hope of
securing a contract for the new season.
Such concerns are far from the thoughts of Kevin Doyle who has hit 10
goals in his first season in the English Premiership.
He recently penned a lucrative new contract which will see him earn more
in a month than the average Swindon player picks up in a year.
Doyle’s thoughts this summer will be of European Championship qualifiers
against both Germany and the Czech Republic.
Barry is likely to spend the summer months in the soccer wilderness hunting
for a new contract.
His record of two goals in four appearances for Swindon including a
dramatic strike on his debut against Lincoln City has boosted his chances
of winning a contract for the coming season.
However there are no guarauntees the fear remains that the injuries
which have dogged his career since he joined Leeds as a 16-year-old trainee
will return and the football career he has always dreamed of could become
just another statistic.
Meanwhile 45 miles up the M4 in Reading the world’s most famous
players and stadia await Kevin Doyle as he continues his rapid rise up
the footballing ladder.
Corr’s story is typical of that of dozens of young Irish players
who know that their futures are in the hands of scouts who make their
living recommending players.
Barry has amassed enough experience that his chances of finding a club
are high.
Kevin Doyle and the rest of the Premiership’s top stars will spend
the summer sunning themselves.
For Barry and dozens of other young Irish footballers the close season
will be about trial matches, dank dressing rooms and an anxious wait for
a phone call from a manager offering one more opportunity to live their
footballing dream. |
