Derry City legend Liam Coyle reflects on his testimonial match against Newcastle, 30 years on!

But then again, there’s nothing conventional about the career of Derry City legend, Liam Coyle!

Thirty years ago today the Brandywell native welcomed Newcastle United to Derry City’s Lone Moor Road venue to celebrate a career seemingly curtailed in its prime by an unfortunate knee injury which prevented Coyle from pursuing a promising cross-channel career.

In 1988, just two years previous, he had burst onto the League of Ireland scene by scoring a hat-trick on his senior debut, displaying the same slick first touch, silky skills, control and clinical finishing which had been his father, Fay’s hallmark.

Coyle became an immediate sensation and was quickly on the radar of top European clubs, including Manchester United, Celtic and Benfica.

He played a starring role in that momentous 1988/89 campaign as Derry clinched the domestic treble when winning the League Cup, the League of Ireland Championship and the FAI Cup under the stewardship of Jim McLaughlin - a feat yet to be repeated!

Coyle won the P.F.A.I. Young Player of the Year’ award that season and went on to gain international recognition with a cap against Chile in a friendly game in Windsor Park, following in the footsteps of his legendary father who had represented Northern Ireland in the 1958 World Cup Finals in Sweden.

Sadly, his projected transfer to one of those European giants mentioned above, failed to materialise as a knee injury sustained against Dundalk had seemingly forced an end to a bright career at the top level - ‘one of the worst tragedies of Irish football’ wrote former Derry City sports Editor, the late

Frank Curran at the time. And yet it marked merely the beginning of a glorious career on home soil.

In the programme notes of his testimonial match against the Magpies, Mr Curran wrote: “Now the Derry football club and supporters gather on a night to remember in the historic old Brandywell ground, where so many great Derry players enthralled the crowds, to pay a farewell tribute to a young man who flashed so brilliantly on the Derry football stage and wrote and an unforgettable, if sadly brief, page in the city’s long soccer history, a young man who, like father like son, adorned the game and rightly earned the respect of colleague and opponent alike.”

It was a fitting tribute but a premature one as Coyle went to revive his career at Omagh Town before returning to write a new chapter with his hometown club as his injection of class helped Derry to go on to achieve further glory.

Indeed, he went on to win the FAI Cup (1995) and league title (1997) under Felix Healy before scoring the winner against Shamrock Rovers in the 2002 decider, representing the Candy Stripes for a further nine years with a spell at Glentoran sandwiched in between.

David O’Leary (Arsenal 1989), Bryan Robson (Man United (1992/93 and 1993/94) and Tony Adams (1997/98, 2001,02) are among a few of the most notable players to have enjoyed a testimonial and who still went on to lift a league trophy but Coyle can add his name to that small band of greats.

When ‘the Toon’ came to town on May 8th 1990 to help celebrate one of the city’s most remarkable talents, there was no shortage of people, including N. Ireland international and Leicester City star, John O’Neill was among those who paid homage to the gifted striker’s achievements when it appeared to be the end of his career.

And the Derry man, who played at two World Cups, offered some words of comfort for the striker who had just experienced his first taste of international football.

“I feel a little bit sorry for Liam in the sense that as he’s had the memories that he’s had with Derry City, which he will always look back on, but he will be left thinking of what could have been.

“I’m sure that he must know how good a player he was and how good a player he could have been so that will make it even harder for Liam to come to terms with.”

The late Raymond McClean, the Derry City club doctor at the time explained the condition, Osteonecrosis, had forced Coyle into believing retirement was his only option.

“The only possible advice which can be given to any sportsman or woman suffering from this potentially serious condition is to retire from any form of active physical contact sport. There is, at present, no successful treatment available,” explained Mr McClean and so Derry fans at Brandywell Stadium that evening were expecting to honour one of the club’s finest players for the final time.

Recalling that evening, Coyle explained he had been reluctant to stage a testimonial and had to be convinced it was his time to hang up the boots.

“I got injured in September and didn’t play again until maybe around February,” explained Coyle. “By that stage I had gone to Hull to see a specialist. At that time Hull had the best knee surgeon in England. They opened me up and found what it was.

“So I came back and they said basically ‘If you carry on playing you could possibly end up in a wheelchair’. I spoke to Jim (McLaughlin) about it and the chairman, Ian Doherty and a few other people and they were all of the opinion that I should stop playing.

“At the time I was possibly easily led with their advice, I think if I had been a bit stronger I would’ve said I would carry on playing. I don’t blame anybody for what happened and I don’t blame anyone for making the decisions they did at the time. But looking back on it now, if you got injured the same way now it would be handled differently.

“So I took the advice and decided to jack it in at that stage. I thought I was young enough so maybe it wouldn’t affect me as much but as it turned out it really did.”

City boss McLaughlin used his extensive contacts book to arrange for Jim Smith’s Second Division outfit, Newcastle United, to come play on Foyleside with Geordie legend, Mick Quinn, Mark McGhee and Roy Aitken among their ranks.

“Jim had a lot of connections in England. He pulled together Newcastle. There was a committee set up to organise things and Jim told them he could get Newcastle. It was put together pretty quickly.”

At the age of 21 years, Coyle admits it was a ‘strange’ occasion.”I hadn’t made my mind up about what I was going to do. I had very little to do with it. I was 21 at the time and I was basically going along with everything they were telling me.

“It was to try and help me out. Usually you get a testimonial after 10 years. But it was basically to raise a few pounds because I didn’t have a job and football was all I had.

"When I eventually came back to Derry there was a lot of bad feeling and I can understand it that people had paid to go and watch a testimonial thinking I was never going to play again and it turned out that I came back two years or so after that. So it wasn’t just all plain sailing coming back and everyone feeling happy about it. So it was a strange one.

“If I had got my way I wouldn’t have had a testimonial but I did. At that time I had a big decision to make whether to come back playing again or not. And it was touch and go whether I was or not. It was only because of Roy McCreadie at Omagh Town. Roy talked me into it and basically that’s how it all came about again.”

And thankfully, there was much more to come in the red and whites Candy Stripes from the big No. 9!