The following season, Johnny’s kick out at a grounded Alex MacDonald and resultant sending off was probably the catalyst for the 4-2 title-deciding victory mentioned earlier. Who knows how that game would have turned out, had that incident not happened? Did it, in fact, spur the remaining ten Celtic players to even greater efforts, as they produced an outstanding second half performance to defy all the odds to win the game and the championship? We will never truly know, although the word is that Doyle himself was distraught, blaming himself for what could have been a hugely costly mistake.
Celtic were again reduced to ten men in what I and many others regard as Johnny’s finest performance in the Hoops, although this time he stayed to excel on the pitch. Love Street was the venue for a Scottish Cup replay in February 1980, many of us still stuck in huge queues outside the ground as Tom McAdam received his marching orders and Saints took an early lead. Doyle was immense in a famous fightback, equalising then winning a penalty, which Bobby Lennox converted for 2-2, before scoring an incredible winner at the start of extra-time, running half the length of the field to beat the offside trap then goalkeeper Billy Thomson from the tightest of angles. This would be the pivotal night in that Cup campaign, which ended in glory for John and Celtic at Hampden in May against Rangers.
There were other highlights, one perhaps lesser-known but which I remember from the end of his first season with Celts, yet again at Somerset Park. With the championship conceded to Rangers, it was a barely-recognisable Celtic side who took the field on the first day in May 1976 against their relegation-threatened hosts, teenagers Andy Ritchie and Robert Hannah making rare appearances beside the equally-youthful Roddie MacDonald, Roy Aitken and Tommy Burns. Despite a Ritchie strike, his only League goal for the Bhoys, Celtic trailed 3-1 with 30 minutes remaining. Cue the returning Doyle, setting up three goals as the Young Hoops emerged from a tough baptism, as unlikely 5-3 winners.
However, I guess the crowning glory, quite literally, would be the night in March 1980, when Johnny threw himself at an Alan Sneddon cross to bullet a header past Ramon in the Real Madrid goal, putting Celts 2-0 up on the night in front of 67,000 delirious supporters in the European Cup Quarter-final. For a fan who fulfilled his boyhood dream, pulling on those sacred Hoops, it is difficult to imagine how he must have felt at that moment. Spine-tingling stuff.
The following seasons would bring new challenges for John, as Billy McNeill sought to get his collection of prized attackers, Davie Provan, Nicholas, McCluskey and McGarvey, on to the field, Doyle often forced on to the periphery of the first team. Despite interest from other clubs, most notably Motherwell and Hearts, John decided to stay and fight to win his place back and whilst his untimely death on this day, 19 October 1981 was and is sadly mourned, there is something fitting that he died as Johnny Doyle of Celtic FC.
Last month we remembered both the Prince of Goalkeepers and Celtic’s greatest-ever manager, let’s raise a glass to another fine Celt.
‘Farewell my darling Johnny, prince of players we must part.
No more we’ll stand and cheer you, on the slopes of Celtic Park’
God bless you, Johnny Doyle – gone far too soon, much-loved and sadly missed.
Hail Hail!
Matt Corr
