Doyle

There will always be an instant memory of Nathan Doyle, even though he was a vastly underused player during a spell with the Tigers that ended today.

Doyle, a skilful right back whose defending capabilities never quite shone through, has gone to Barnsley today after spending a good length of time on loan there. Phil Brown raved about him when he snapped him up for peanuts from Derby County in 2007. He had observed the adolescent Doyle during his own tenure at Pride Park but, while continuing to sing his praises, simply refused to play him in any Hull City game that absolutely mattered unless really, really forced.

The memory will stay though of an exuberant Doyle, shattered after the birth of his first child hours before, coming on as a late substitute to sample the adulatory atmosphere engulfing the KC Stadium in May 2008 as City led 3-1 against Watford, 5-1 on aggregate, and were sauntering to the Championship play-off final at Wembley.

Doyle, like in the first leg, came on as a midfield sub. In that first leg he had fancy-danned his way into space to curl a long range shot against Watford's post, an effort which would simply have been one of City's greatest ever goals had it been an inch or two narrower. This time, four days on and with the celebrations of a Richard Garcia goal still in full swing, Doyle collected a ball in the centre and nipped into a gap left open by bewildered, beaten Watford players before hitting a left foot drive which was deflected into the net. The deflection was key to the goal but it was still Doyle's, his first for the club, and he marked the occasion with the Bebeto-esque baby-rocking routine while sections of crowd, unwisely but understandably, invaded the pitch.

Doyle was on the bench for the final and never got on, but had a medal draped round his neck nonetheless after City won the match and clinched promotion. Beyond that, a hapless performance at right back in last season's infamous 5-1 defeat at Manchester City, which was overshadowed by Brown's antics anyway, is all else he has to label two and a half years of an attractive looking career. This was one those aforementioned games that absolutely mattered that forced Brown to look at Doyle, and the youngster far from delivered. This season he only featured for the first team in the Carling Cup tie against Southend United, prior to Barnsley's call.

The Championship, especially within a team clearly progressing admirably under Mark Robins, may well be the level Doyle suits best. City need to prune the squad, both in numbers and in cost, and Doyle's wages will not even begin to ease the furrowed brow of Adam Pearson as he pores over the books, but the decision to sell is quite right. Doyle was a nowhere player, one that evidently Brown couldn't quite trust at the highest level, and it would have been a shame for such a promising career to have stalled for much longer.