Peter Doherty (footballer)

A plaque marks the birthplace of Doherty in Magherafelt.

Doherty (left), in his Manchester City days, shaking hands with Jimmy Hampson, of his first club, Blackpool, in the late 1930s. The two were former teammates at Blackpool.

Born in Magherafelt, County Londonderry, Doherty began his career with Glentoran in the Irish League. He worked first a bricklayer and then as a bus conductor.[2] After helping Glentoran to the 1933 Irish Cup,[3] early in the 1933–34 season Doherty joined English club Blackpool for a £2,000 fee, at the age of 19.[2] He joined Manchester 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 to Bloomfield 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 the British record.[3] Doherty's Manchester City debut, against Preston North End, was not a successful one. Tightly man-marked by Bill 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 the 1936–37 season poorly, and were in the bottom half of the table until December.[6] Occasional big wins, including a 6–2 defeat of West 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 5–3 Christmas day loss to Grimsby Town was his twelfth of the season. Christmas proved to be a turning point for the club, as a win against Middlesbrough 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 against Arsenal, 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 over Sheffield Wednesday. Doherty, with 30 league goals, 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 during his time at Maine Road. During the Second World War years of 1939–1945, Doherty served in the RAF. 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 and Walsall.[10] During a guest appearance for Port Vale in 1945, he famously went to take a penalty but instead of shooting he laid it off to a teammate who scored.[11]

After the conclusion of the war, he transferred to Derby County, with whom he won the FA Cup, scoring a goal in the final itself as Derby beat Charlton Athletic 4–1 at Wembley Stadium.[12] In December 1946, Doherty moved to David Steele's Huddersfield 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 of Albert Bateman, Jimmy Glazzard, Alf Whittingham, Doherty and Vic Metcalfe.[14] However a weak defence saw them struggle in the lower reaches of the First Division throughout the 1946–47 season, 1947–48 and 1948–49 seasons.[14] At Leeds Road he scored 33 goals in 83 league appearances, finishing as the "Terriers" top-scorer in his final two seasons under George 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 a shot 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]

In later life he became a scout for Liverpool, helping to unearth such talents as Kevin Keegan.[24] He and Andy Beattie also served Notts County as 'professional advisers' from December 1965 to March 1966, providing council to first-team manager Ernie Coleman.[25] Following his death in 1990, there is a plaque to mark his birthplace in Magherafelt.[2]

Awards

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

Glentoran

• Irish Cup: 1933[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]