Peter Doherty

Personal information
Full name	Peter Dermot Doherty[1]
Date of birth	(1913-06-05)5 June 1913
Place of birth	Magherafelt,County Londonderry, Ireland
Date of death	6 April 1990(1990-04-06) (aged 76)
Place of death	Poulton-le-Fylde,Lancashire, England
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)[2]
Position	Inside-left
Youth career
1926–1930	Station United
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1930–1931	Coleraine
1931–1933	Glentoran
1933–1936	Blackpool	82	(28)
1936–1945	Manchester City	119	(74)
1945–1946	Derby County	15	(7)
1946–1949	Huddersfield Town	83	(33)
1949–1953	Doncaster Rovers	103	(56)
Total		402	(198)
International career
1935–1950	Ireland (IFA)	16	(3)
Managerial career
1949–1958	Doncaster Rovers
1951–1962	Northern Ireland
1958–1960	Bristol City
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Peter Dermot Doherty (5 June 1913 – 6 April 1990) was aNorthern Irish internationalfootballer andmanager.

Aninside-left, he was one of the top players of his time, gaining 16 caps forIreland (IFA). He played forColeraine andGlentoran, winning theIrish Cup with Glentoran in 1933, before winning a move to English clubBlackpool later in the year. He was sold toManchester City in February 1936 for a fee of£10,000 and helped the club to win theFirst Division title for the first time in the 1936–37 season. The outbreak ofWorld War II cost him the chance to play competitive football during his peak years, and he wastransferred toDerby County as the war drew to a close. He won theFA Cup with Derby, scoring in the1946 FA Cup final victory overCharlton Athletic. He moved on toHuddersfield Town later in the year.

In April 1949, he was appointed player-manager ofDoncaster Rovers. He was also top-scorer as the club won theThird Division North title during the 1949–50 season. The club then spent the next seven seasons in theSecond Division before he resigned in January 1958. He also worked asNorthern Ireland's first national team manager from October 1951 to May 1962. He used his position to help Doncaster sign talented Irish players whilst helping his nation qualify for the1958 FIFA World Cup, where they reached the quarter-finals. He spent 1958 to 1960 asBristol City manager. He laterscouted forLiverpool and was in the first group of 22 players to be inducted into theEnglish Football Hall of Fame.

Born inMagherafelt,County Londonderry, Doherty began his career withGlentoran in theIrish League. He worked first as a bricklayer and then as a bus conductor.^[2] After helping Glentoran to the 1933Irish Cup,^[3] early in the1933–34 season Doherty joined English clubBlackpool for a£2,000 fee, at the age of 19.^[2] He joinedManchester City on 19 February 1936 for a then-club record of £10,000.^[4] Blackpool needed the money urgently, and Doherty was summoned from his lunch to report toBloomfield Road. The Irishman tried hard to persuade Blackpool directors that he did not wish to leave the club, for he was due to marry a local girl and had just bought a new house in the town.^[5] The fee was an exceptionally high transfer fee for the period; it came within £1,000 of theBritish record.^[3] Doherty's Manchester City debut, againstPreston North End, was not a successful one. Tightlyman-marked byBill Shankly throughout, he failed to make an impact, leading to one catcall from the crowd of "Ten thousand pounds? More like ten thousand cigarette cards".^[6] Doherty later described the remainder of his first Manchester City season as "uneventful",^[7] but his second was to be anything but.

Manchester City started the1936–37 season poorly and were in the bottom half of the table until December.^[6] Occasional big wins, including a 6–2 defeat ofWest Bromwich Albion and a 4–1 defeat of Everton, were mixed with extended barren runs; at one point the club gained just one win in twelve matches.^[8] However, Doherty was scoring goals regularly. A goal in a 5–3Christmas day loss toGrimsby Town was his twelfth of the season. Christmas proved to be a turning point for the club, as a win againstMiddlesbrough the following day was the start of a long unbeaten run.^[6] By April, Manchester City were second in the table and faced a fixture againstArsenal, league leaders and the dominant club of the period.^[9] Doherty scored the first goal in a 2–0 win, and City reached the top of the table.^[6] The unbeaten run continued until the end of the season, and City secured their first league championship with a 4–1 win overSheffield Wednesday. With 30 league goals, Doherty was the club's leading scorer, helped by a run of eleven goals in seven games as the season drew to a close.^[8]

Doherty scored 79 goals in 130 appearances atMaine Road. During theSecond World War years of 1939–1945, Doherty served in theRAF. He remained registered as a Manchester City player, scoring 60 goals in 89 wartime matches,^[4] though wartime games are not generally included in official records. He also guested for numerous clubs across the country:Port Vale,Blackburn Rovers,Derby County,Birmingham,Brentford,Grimsby Town,Lincoln City,Liverpool,Manchester United,West Bromwich Albion andWalsall.^[10] During a guest appearance for Port Vale in 1945, he famously went to take apenalty, but instead ofshooting he laid it off to a teammate who scored.^[11]

After the conclusion of the war, hetransferred toDerby County, with whom he won theFA Cup, scoring a goal in thefinal itself as Derby beatCharlton Athletic 4–1 atWembley Stadium.^[12] In December 1946, Doherty moved toDavid Steele'sHuddersfield Town for a fee of over £9,000 after requesting a transfer. Doherty was unhappy with the directors who opposed his plan to secure his future by taking over the Arboretum Hotel and an earlier dispute over FA Cup final tickets.^[13] The "Terriers" boasted a powerful front five ofAlbert Bateman,Jimmy Glazzard,Alf Whittingham, Doherty andVic Metcalfe.^[14] However, a weak defence saw them struggle in the lower reaches of the First Division throughout the1946–47 season,1947–48 and1948–49 seasons.^[14] AtLeeds Road he scored 33 goals in 83 league appearances, finishing as the "Terriers" top-scorer in his final two seasons underGeorge Stephenson.

In his autobiography,Len Shackleton wrote of Doherty:

"Peter Doherty was surely the genius among geniuses. Possessor of the most baffling body swerve in football, able to perform all the tricks with the ball, owning ashot like the kick of a mule, and, with all this, having such tremendous enthusiasm for the game that he would work like a horse for ninety minutes. That was pipe-smoking Peter Doherty, the Irish redhead who, I am convinced, had enough football skill to stroll through a game smoking that pipe-and still make the other twenty-one players appear second-raters. But of course Peter never strolled through anything. His energy had to be seen to be appreciated."^[15]

He made his final move toDoncaster Rovers in April 1949, where he assumed the role ofplayer-manager.^[16] He scored 30 goals from 39 games in the1949–50 season and led "Donny" topromotion as champions of theThird Division North.^[16] He was again top-scorer with 14 goals in 23 matches during the1950–51 season as Rovers posted an 11th-place finish in the Second Division.^[16] He then settled more into his management role, helping the club to sign players from his home country such asLen Graham,Harry Gregg andKit Lawlor, whilst overseeing the development of young players such asAlick Jeffrey.^[16] The club spent the next six seasons finishing in the lower half of the Second Division table:1951–52 (16th),1952–53 (13th),1953–54 (12th),1954–55 (18th)1955–56 (17th) and1956–57 (14th). He leftBelle Vue when he resigned in January 1958 following several disputes with the club's board of directors; the club went on to berelegated at the end of the1957–58 season.^[16]

He becamemanager ofNorthern Ireland between 1951 and 1962, for whom he had 16 caps as a player. He led the country at the1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden after they topped theirqualification group ahead ofItaly andPortugal.^[17] At the tournament itself, Northern Ireland qualified for the knockout stages after finishing second intheir group, having beatenCzechoslovakia, lost toArgentina and drew withWest Germany.^[18][19][20] Having finished level on points with Czechoslovakia, they then beat the Czechs 2–1 in a play-off game, withPeter McParland scoring a brace at theMalmö Stadion.^[21] They were then eliminated after losing 4–0 againstFrance in the quarter-finals.^[22]

He also managedBristol City from 1958 to 1960. The "Robins" finished tenth in the Second Division at the end of the1958–59 season and were relegated at the end of the1959–60 campaign.

From October 1970 to January 1973, he held the position of assistant manager atPreston North End,^[23] working alongsideAlan Ball Sr who had been appointed Preston's manager during the 1970 close season. In this role, he was immediately successful, with Preston becomingThird Division champions at their first attempt in the1970–71 season.

His coaching techniques were revolutionary at the time. He emphasised ball practice, and instead of endless laps of thepitch, Doherty suggested volleyball "to promote jumping, timing and judgement"; basketball "to encourage split-second decision-making and finding space"; andwalking football, "to build upcalf muscles".^[24]

In later life he became ascout forLiverpool, helping to unearth such talents asKevin Keegan.^[24] He andAndy Beattie also servedNotts County as 'professional advisers' from December 1965 to March 1966, providing council to first-team managerErnie Coleman.^[25] Following his death in 1990, there is aplaque to mark his birthplace inMagherafelt.^[2]

Awards

• English Football Hall of Fame: inducted 2002
• Manchester City F.C. Hall of Fame: inducted 2004

Glentoran

• Irish Cup:1932–33^[3]

Manchester City

• Football League First Division:1936–37^[29]

Derby County

• FA Cup:1946^[14]

Doncaster Rovers player-manager

• Football League Third Division North:1949–50^[16]

• 1913 births
• 1990 deaths
• Sportspeople from Magherafelt
• Association footballers from County Londonderry
• Men's association footballers from Northern Ireland
• Men's association football inside forwards
• Pre-1950 IFA men's international footballers
• Ireland (IFA) men's wartime international footballers
• Coleraine F.C. players
• Glentoran F.C. players
• Blackpool F.C. players
• Manchester City F.C. players
• Port Vale F.C. wartime guest players
• Blackburn Rovers F.C. wartime guest players
• Derby County F.C. wartime guest players
• Birmingham City F.C. wartime guest players
• Brentford F.C. wartime guest players
• Grimsby Town F.C. wartime guest players
• Lincoln City F.C. wartime guest players
• Liverpool F.C. wartime guest players
• Manchester United F.C. wartime guest players
• West Bromwich Albion F.C. wartime guest players
• Walsall F.C. wartime guest players
• Derby County F.C. players
• Huddersfield Town A.F.C. players
• Doncaster Rovers F.C. players
• English Football League players
• Men's association football player-managers
• Association football managers from Northern Ireland
• Doncaster Rovers F.C. managers
• Northern Ireland national football team managers
• Bristol City F.C. managers
• English Football League managers
• English Football Hall of Fame inductees
• 1958 FIFA World Cup managers
• English Football League representative players
• Association football scouts
• Preston North End F.C. non-playing staff
• Liverpool F.C. non-playing staff
• Notts County F.C. non-playing staff
• Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
• NIFL Premiership players
• 20th-century sportsmen from Northern Ireland

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