Doyle's success to up fees ante

SOCCER/National League: Kevin Doyle scored his 17th league goal of the season as Reading admirably showed no hangover from their English Championship title-winning celebrations of last week to beat Cardiff City 5-2 at Ninian Park on Saturday afternoon.

Ten months after he left Cork City for Berkshire, Doyle's inspiring success has shone like a beacon for the National League. But what legacy, if one at all, will it offer the senior game here? Has the righteous anger at the clause in his contract that allowed the former Ireland under-21 striker leave Turner's Cross for a paltry €117,000 last summer been replaced by the realisation of a potential bigger pay-out?

Doyle (and latterly, teenager Shane Long, who joined along with him) has been little short of a revelation at the Madejski Stadium as Steve Coppell's astute tutelage has seen Reading stroll to promotion to next season's Premiership with eight games to spare.

While Cork have received a couple of further nominal payments, following his senior international debut last month and for Reading clinching promotion, and are believed to be on up to 10 per cent of any future transfer fee for Doyle - now conservatively valued at £3 million - his successful move has surely improved the perception of the Irish domestic game in the minds of the football folk across the Irish Sea.

Traditionally seen as a league scarcely above the standard of their own Conference, English, and indeed Scottish clubs are slowly raising an eyebrow or two at the gradual improvements, both on and off the field, being made in the National League. But are the days of British clubs taking burgeoning talent, the Paul McGraths, Roy Keanes and now Kevin Doyles, from clubs here for a veritable pittance gone? Improving on what amounted to token transfer fees isn't helped by the tradition of our best young players' understandable eagerness to forge out a professional career in British football, and a history of clubs just happy to get anything they can for them in the context of what is much of the time a hand-to-mouth existence.

Doyle's contract serves as a pertinent example. When he signed for Cork from St Patrick's Athletic a clause was built into his deal allowing for a nominal fee only should a club from England come calling.

With the player naturally keen to get the chance to play at a higher level, the smaller the proposed fee the less chance of scaring off any potential buyers who might otherwise see it as too much of a gamble. The hope now, however, is Doyle's immediate success will foster a sea change in that attitude.

Though the rejuvenated National League believes it can offer a viable alternative to going abroad, the desire to make it in England remains the ultimate goal in the hearts and minds of talented young footballers here.

That's something clubs there are all too aware of.

Getting the deal right for all concerned is what clubs here now want to see. For example, if Doyle had been playing in Denmark or Norway there is no way he would have ended up in England for such a meagre fee.

Irish clubs have always trumpeted the view they would never stand in the way of a young player wanting to move to a British club.

But the increased professionalism of the senior game here dictates the time has come for British clubs to pay a reasonable sum for what they are getting. The practice of taking players on trial is also now becoming unacceptable to clubs here.

"We won't be looking for a king's ransom, but he'll be going nowhere on the cheap," said the manager of a Premier Division club recently on hearing a Premiership club were set to watch one of his players, another under-21 international.

"There will be nobody going anywhere on trial. Those days have gone. They can come over here and watch and make up their minds."

Getting them to pay the market rate may still be another day's work, however.