'Football is beyond ruthless. So you have to be ruthless yourself' - How Eoin Doyle has survived in English football

In his mind, it's never about the here and now. It's always about what might be coming next. Life experience has conditioned him to think that way.

Here are the facts that truly open a window to the existence of the Dubliner, a player admired by fellow Irish professionals because of the career he has carved out for himself.

He left school early to qualify as an electrician but the recession put him out of work and forced him to try and earn a wage in the League of Ireland.

He says the turning point was meeting a journeyman from Scotland who weighed his food and then studying a picture in 'Men's Health' magazine.

He's moved so many times on transfer deadline day that he's got a fixed routine of filling a tank of petrol and packing a bag in the morning just in case.

He endures a three-hour commute to training on his own, rather than participating in a car pool, because it allows him to listen to self-help podcasts and entrepreneurial ideas.

He's a father of three children who panics about contracts and the retirement age in his profession because of the pressure to provide.

He's a partner in a childcare company, having previously lost money in stocks and shares and an unsuccessful window-cleaning business.

He has always wanted to make money in any way, shape or form. The last line is a direct quote from his wife Ciara.

"He'll admit that," she adds, sitting at the kitchen table of their house on the outskirts of Liverpool. Her husband nods in agreement.

"It won't read well," he concedes, "But that's the reality of it."

In a cut-throat industry, being honest with yourself is half the battle.

*****

If there's a trip that offers perspective on Doyle's journey, then it's the drive he made to Sligo two days before Christmas in 2011. He was 23.

A day previously, he'd penned an 18-month contract with Scottish Premier League side Hibernian. This was the closest thing to security that he'd ever truly known.

In the course of his two-and-a-half seasons at Sligo Rovers, which remains his longest stint as a first-teamer at any club, he made friends for life. But the purpose of this commute was to collect his final dole package. "Double bubble, isn't it?", he says, citing the colloquial expression for the December payment.

Doyle was on a 40-week deal, which remains the norm for the vast majority of League of Ireland players, and that means signing on in the local social welfare office when the contract ends.

He'd worked hard to even reach that stage; the idea of a full-time career in football seemed distant in his teens as the prodigies of his generation went overseas while he left school to learn a trade as an electrician, even taking a break from the sport along the way, before signing a part-time contract with Shamrock Rovers under Pat Scully.

"In my last year as a spark, work dried up," Doyle explains. "There would be three of us going around having a laugh doing a Tesco Express or an attic conversion but when the recession hit then that was the end of that. I was able to concentrate on football.

"I was getting my 100 quid expenses a week and just going for it. I'd run up to the Maldron Hotel (in Tallaght) from the gaff in Firhouse, go to the gym, run home, shower, and then train in the evening."

But frustration over a lack of opportunities under Scully's replacement Michael O'Neill led to a move west to Sligo, an environment that is very social for outside players brought in. Doyle jokes that his pal Aaron Greene was teetotal until he signed there.

A switch was flicked when veteran Scottish defender Jim Lauchlan arrived a year into his Sligo stay. "This 34-year-old comes into the dressing room and he's ripped," he enthuses. "He's talking about weighing his food and all of this. He didn't push it on anyone ,but he was basically saying 'this is what you need to do to look after yourself'."

At the end of a season which culminated with an FAI Cup win over his old club Rovers, Doyle was on the dole again. And once his couple of weeks of indulgence were out of the way, he set about doing what was necessary to get to the top League of Ireland wage bracket.

"I decided if I was going to make something out of this, it would have to be now because of my age," he continues.

A copy of Men's Health magazine was purchased. "I opened a page where a fella was ripped and it showed his diet and I just copied it for eight weeks.

"I remember it was turkey mince, baked potatoes, chili con carne, brown rice, porridge with peanut butter, stuff like that which I'd never eaten before."

A 25-goal season under the watch of Paul Cook followed, and Pat Fenlon came calling to make an Irishman his first Hibs capture. The dole days were over.

*****

Fate works in mysterious ways. Ciara also grew up in Firhouse and was a school pal of her future husband's friends, yet they didn't meet until they hit 20.

"The Plaza. Sunday night. €2.50 a drink," Eoin grins.

Her father would have recognised him. Gerard Kelly is a Shamrock Rovers nut, and had high hopes that his second daughter would catch the bug.

"He was taking me to all these Rovers games, the Bohs matches, all of them," she recalls.

There was a game against UCD and he said to me 'Do you see him there? He goes to your school'. And I was like 'Dad, he doesn't.' And he said, 'No, he does. He comes from Firhouse, and he plays for Shamrock Rovers' and he's thinking this is the best thing ever. I was thinking 'You're talking sh**e Dad' but two years later I met Eoin and I had to tell him he was right."

This brought a new dimension to the first visit to the girlfriend's house. Ciara takes up the story.

"My best friend Steph had come over and she was trying to prep me for this first date in the house and my Dad nearly kicked the bedroom door in. He's in his full Rovers kit and scarf and he starts waving the flag around the bedroom. I was proper screaming at him.

"My brother had a drum and the two of them went marching around the house. I was mortified. I had to get my Mam to calm the situation. But he still made sure he opened the door in full Rovers kit."

"Jersey on and a scarf around his neck," Eoin confirms, chuckling again. "There was a flag hanging down too."

It's fair to say he was on a winner from the start, even if the economic climate presented challenges.

Ciara is a nurse and she moved to England for employment before he did. She relocated to Scotland, where she was pregnant with Danny when the decision was made to a sign a pre-contract agreement with League Two Chesterfield and a reunion with Cook.

A pal advised that the collapse of Rangers would negatively affect the Scottish market. Doyle speaks bluntly when he says that finances are the first factor in any decision. Packing up houses was the price to pay for those career choices. Danny had lived in five abodes and a hotel before his second birthday.

A prolific run at Chesterfield, influenced by another dietary change, secured a lucrative and life-changing transfer to Cardiff. After seven months in a Vincent Tan-run club, a story in itself, he went to Preston. Eventually, the couple decided a base was needed and Liverpool was identified.

Joey and Luca have since come along to swell the family contingent, and thus remove any wanderlust. They are asleep upstairs as this discussion takes place.

"It's Liverpool or Dublin now," says Doyle. "My agent hates me, he says we're landlocked."

Prospective employers have to work around that. Portsmouth didn't work out as a long-distance option, and subsequent stays at Oldham, Bradford and Swindon were dependent on managers knowing his preferences.

Swindon is more than three hours' drive away and when the option came up the manager Richie Wellens, his old boss at Oldham, presented a wary Ciara with a 50-day roster that would lay out the practicalities.

In a regular week, Doyle rises before 5am on a Tuesday, gets on the road so he's beyond Birmingham by 7am, and gets to Swindon for training. He stays Tuesday, makes the return journey after training on Wednesday, spends Thursdays at home and rises on Friday morning to travel again for another short stay built around a match on Saturday.

Clearly, it's not taking a toll on his performances. For Bradford, who let Doyle go after he operated out of position in the first three games of the season, it's somewhat embarrassing.

In the second week of January, they have the option to recall him but Doyle - who met with Bradford recently - is not keen on going back to the club that wanted him off the wage bill in August after dropping down from League One.

Bradford boss Gary Bowyer insists that he is keen on having him there; it's natural that he would prefer if a promotion rival didn't have the division's top striker.

"I want to play for Swindon for the rest of the season, that's exactly where I want to be," Doyle says, adding that the Robins are prepared to go the extra mile to do so.

It will be resolved in January. He's well aware of how the market works.

*****

Deadline day could be his Mastermind specialist subject. He's made five moves. Chesterfield to Cardiff was the most dramatic and the most significant because it put him into another paygrade. Championship wages convince mortgage brokers that the man on the other side of the table will have the means to honour a commitment.

The month before had been headspinning, with a host of clubs on the trail of League One's form player.

MLS newcomers New York City were the left-field option. "It would have been David Villa up front with Andrea Pirlo in behind," he says. Ciara points out she had the visas prepared.

There was more to the idea than his footballing prowess. "They wanted a ginger Irishman in New York," he says. "I would have been eating Lucky Charms coming off the plane."

The budgetary limitations of the centralised American system meant they could only offer a £200,000 fee. Chesterfield knew they could command four times that. Money always talks.

Doyle turned up for training in the morning knowing he was leaving, even if he didn't know where he was going. Cook knew it too and destroyed him in the video debrief from the previous match.

"I could see the smirk on his face as he's saying it because I wasn't going to be there the next day," Doyle laughs.

He was in the gym with a phone in his sock when his agent Eamonn Collins called. "He said: 'It looks like it's going to be Cardiff, will you take these wages?" and I said 'Yeah, damn right, I will.'

Doyle said his goodbyes. He'd filled up a full tank of petrol early that morning to save time, a routine that he now follows on moving day. A bag is packed with any essentials required; ID cards, a change of clothes, maybe some anti-inflammatories.

He was halfway down the motorway to Cardiff when Collins called to say West Brom had come in. This was Premier League.

Carlton Cole was at their training ground undergoing a medical and if that didn't work out then Doyle was Plan B. Keep the phone on, in other words.

"I was on the hard shoulder for half an hour waiting for a call. I rang Eamonn and he said 'I think you have to go to Cardiff and sign the deal because this call is not coming.'

Sky Sports caught him running across a car park which hinted at drama, but he was only going back to his vehicle to fetch his passport.

"That's how I found out," Ciara cuts in. "I was at home watching Sky Sports News and thinking 'Why is he running?'"

Other memories are fresher in the player's mind.

"In the room that night, Eamonn got a phone call. I know it was Tony Pulis (West Brom manager), but he's never told me since. I could see the disbelief, I must ask him. I have a feeling."

Cole's move had fallen through. Those are the sliding doors moments that happen when pressure is applied in the frantic final 24 hours.

Still, Doyle had no reason for regrets; this was a game-changer.

"It was huge for us, even though I was probably still going in as the lowest earner. You go into the car park and there's Maseratis in there," he said.

"We shared the training ground with the Cardiff Blues rugby side and they're obviously not getting paid as much as the footballers.

"You'd see them walking into the car park and there would be a bit of jealousy there. They're putting in 10-hour days in the gym and we're gone by noon!"

"I don't think I really understood how big it was," adds Ciara, who liked Cardiff and was unimpressed with the abrupt exit to Preston on the next deadline day - a loan that eventually became permanent.

There he was viewed as an option off the bench, and when he complained to Simon Grayson, he found himself in the stands. With a three-year deal on good money, agitating for a full-time exit when Alex Neil (the next boss) shared similar views made little sense. Instead, there were three deadline-day loan exits; once to Portsmouth and twice to Oldham.

Ten clubs were in the frame before the prospect of another Cook reunion pushed him to Portsmouth. Preston's preferred option was Bolton. This is how the window works. Doyle sat through meetings with managers he had no intention of signing for.

A boss of another club warned him off Bolton because he'd heard they were about to sign Adam le Fondre. Doyle had shared a dressing-room with 'Alfie' at Cardiff and picked up the phone to verify the story and find they were being played off against each other. He paints a vivid picture of organised chaos, of lies, white lies and half truths.

"Football is beyond ruthless," he asserts, "So you have to be ruthless yourself."

*****

There is humour in the transfer tales that masks a serious side. With the writing on the wall at Preston, Doyle was realistic enough to know he wouldn't be getting a Championship-level contract at his next club. He was overcome with worry in the summer before he signed for Bradford.

"I was thinking I need to sort out a few years here, that's my goal, I'm supporting five people," he explains. "There's panic stations every day over it because you retire so young in this game. That's the way my mind works."

"You're a worrier, aren't you?" Ciara says. "It sounds a bit naive but I've never thought he wouldn't be able to look after us. I've always believed in him."

Before Bradford, doubts had set in. Penning a two-year deal was a relief. "I was sick as a dog the day I signed, the stress hit me," he says.

"I could barely get through training. I said to the club, you need to put me in a hotel here. I was shivering and shaking and had to be driven to the game on the Saturday. That was the weight lifting off my shoulder, the relief."

He does encounter players with no vision for the future. "You feel a bit sorry for them, because they don't understand real life," he muses. "I think people like that need to hit rock bottom for the reality check.

"There are lads with kids who are still like that," Ciara adds.

The man of her house is constantly thinking about the end. Hence the desire to exercise his mind. All of his driving time is spent absorbing listening material.

He's got his fingers burned before. Noting the demand for window cleaners in Liverpool, he set up a mate with a similar venture in Dublin.

"I just couldn't get it going," he shrugs, "A different culture. I lost a few bob doing that."

Then there was the stocks and shares. "I didn't lose a fortune on it," he cautions. "I actually lost money trying to educate myself on it. There were online courses you pay for that go through scenarios, but I just didn't have the head for it."

For inspiration, he looked closer to home. The nursery where Danny went in Liverpool had its own app that updated parents on how their kid was faring during the day.

Doyle reckoned there was a gap in the market at home for a modernised childcare facility. Named after his grandmother, the 'Lily's' before and after-school service was born. His partner in this venture is his close friend and ex-Sligo team-mate Danny Ventre, a Scouser with kids of a similar age who bought into the thinking.

With an emphasis on healthy eating and activities, and a service which provides parents with information throughout the day, their base in Ballycullen now has kids from seven schools attending.

"We plan to have a few of them and really go for it," he stresses. "This is definitely for life after football."

His father John runs the community centre and looks after all the paperwork and presentations. Doyle has spent a lot of his days off accompanying his father to meetings where they have made pitches.

"My dad would lead it," he stresses, "but once you've been through the rituals of singing in front of a bunch of footballers, stuff like that is no problem."

He notes that his current dressingroom is in touch with the outside world.

Doyle got caught up in the Brexit debate, adding countless podcasts to his rota, and he's not alone.

"The first time I've ever, ever been in a situation in football where politics is actually an ongoing conversation," he says. "I was in Scotland for the independence referendum and that was barely talked about. This though...carnage.

"You'd come down for breakfast on the day of the match and there's 15 lads there thrashing it out. People talking about how they voted and what they believed in. The country is properly divided."

The 'Ginger Pele', as he's been christened by Swindon fans, thought better of a pre-election post outlining his preferences. Let's just say he wouldn't hold a popular opinion in a Tory town.

Brexit hit him in the pocket. Greg Cunningham, his former Preston team-mate, is a like-minded soul. They had a chat six weeks before the 2016 referendum.

"I was saying we should throw our money home," he recalls. "Greg said: 'Nah, it (Brexit) isn't going to happen and I said 'You're right, it won't' and looking back now it's like... ahhh. You're looking at the pound being worth €1.45 to €1.10 almost overnight."

He'd looked at 'forever homes' back in Ireland with Ciara, but they needed a 30 per cent deposit living abroad. Brexit scuppered that plan. Their wedding in Powerscourt also went 30 per cent over budget because of the exchange rate. "And I got carried away too," Ciara smiles.

They got through it, however, but will enter their own recurring version of the leave or remain debate when his contract expires in the summer. Doyle is more relaxed about his standing now; there will be offers.

He will enter any negotiations with his eyes open and his research done. When this footballer throws out the line about doing what's right for himself and his family, he really means it.