Peter Doherty

I've just remembered that in the mid- or late-seventies, Doherty was voted ahead of George Best as the foremost player ever to come from the island of Ireland. Best by that point had exited top-level football but memories of his greatest days were fairly fresh, yet Doherty still came out on top. I can't recall details of who was allowed to vote or how the survey was carried out, but @Gary James has mentioned it in the past and may (if he has time) be able to supply further information.

I've also dug out this page, which has a short biography of him: https://www.vintagefootballers.com/product/doherty-peter-image-7-manchester-city-1938/

The following quotes are well worth reading:

Bill Shankly:

Di Stefano, Puskas, Gento, Kopa, Pele, Eusebio, Bobby Charlton, Finney and Matthews.

It was an honour to play with and against the last two. But top of them all I would place Peter Doherty of Manchester City. He always gave me the greatest trouble. He was perpetual motion. You could dog, challenge and even hurt him. But you couldn’t dismay him. He kept coming.
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Len Shackleton:

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.
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So some pretty decent testimonials there for Doherty putting him as one of the true greats.
 
mayo31 said:
Joe Mercer said Doherty was the best player he saw in an interview about his City side
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Mercer said he was the best player to come out of Northern Ireland. I don't think he ever said he was the best player of all time.
 
He scored 11 in 7 games in the title run in, in 1937.

Not bad as a manager either, took Northern Ireland to the World Cup quarter finals, knocking Italy out in the qualifiers, The only time they failed to qualify before 2018.

He also went onto scout for Liverpool, helping to bring Kevin Keegan to Anfield.
 
Beckham didnt get voted into utds best 11 by utd fans...

What did best do 5yrs?...when he grew his first beard it was all over....kop johan in his 36th yr smashing it for Feyenoord...no comparison.

On a train journey once with an olde knowledgable red, he said it was between finney and doherty....he said edwards didnt reign long enough to evaluate and looked like he would thicken with age.
 
Fat Chance said:
Beckham didnt get voted into utds best 11 by utd fans...

What did best do 5yrs?...when he grew his first beard it was all over....kop johan in his 36th yr smashing it for Feyenoord...no comparison.

On a train journey once with an olde knowledgable red, he said it was between finney and doherty....he said edwards didnt reign long enough to evaluate and looked like he would thicken with age.
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When he said between finney and Doherty. Did he mean the best in England or the best in the world.
 
Fat Chance said:
Beckham didnt get voted into utds best 11 by utd fans...

What did best do 5yrs?...when he grew his first beard it was all over....kop johan in his 36th yr smashing it for Feyenoord...no comparison.

On a train journey once with an olde knowledgable red, he said it was between finney and doherty....he said edwards didnt reign long enough to evaluate and looked like he would thicken with age.
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What did he think of best. A lot of reds believe he was greatest player of all time.
 
LongsightM13 said:
What is your game, mate?
You revived an 11 year old George Best thread earlier this week, you seem determined for people to say Best was the GOAT
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Haha! You must have read some of his previous posts, mate? He's not even a fucking City fan!! His contributions to anything Foden related are his best work though.
 
Fat Chance said:
The chap had seen the hungarians...knowledgable geezer, he didnt need google.
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Was the 1954 world cup on telly? I remember seeing some documentary about in on Eurosport in 1994 around that WC time, but very little footage available. It would be extremely hard to form opinions on foreign players in those days. Apart from the famous match at Wembley, Puskas and even more recent players like Garrincha, was what people read in the paper.
 
Radiohead1981 said:
What did he think of best. A lot of reds believe he was greatest player of all time.
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He thought he was most naturally talented but charlton the more complete..

Said doherty had it off with a winger called lineker (sp?)...bit of a toshak-keegan affair but lineker broke his leg early into his career...and passed remark doherty carried on regardless
 
Radiohead1981 said:
I think the forgotten man and arguably our greatest player deserves a thread of his own.
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I think the fact that he is forgotten is because he played for City so long ago.

It's 85+ years since he signed for us.

I mentioned it only the other day in another thread, but we used to see a gent in his 90s in the lift on the way to and from CBL3.

He said that Peter was the best City player he ever saw; better than The King and any of the-then current élite stars we had, like Merlin, Yaya and Sergio.

As others have said, he must have been some player.
 
Fat Chance said:
He thought he was most naturally talented but charlton the more complete..

Said doherty had it off with a winger called lineker (sp?)...bit of a toshak-keegan affair but lineker broke his leg early into his career...and passed remark doherty carried on regardless
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Most naturally talented player of all time or in the united team.
 
the blue panther said:
I saw Best a lot as a kid but I never saw him perform on the bigger stages, except at Wembley in the European Cup final on TV, in 1968, I was already a blue, but my dad took us to City 1 week and United the next. Best was a media darling; exciting tricky dribbler, who could shoot with both feet, but he wasn't better than Lee or Bell, who could do the same - and more; I wouldn't have swapped either of them for him.
My dad used to enthuse about Doherty, but he always loved King Colin; the M.E.N. back in the day used to always refer to Bell as the new Peter Doherty. All I can say is that, going off Bell's standards, Doherty must have been a hell of a player, and I wish I could have seen him to judge for myself.
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Do you remember the "Bell, Lee, Summerbee" video?

In it, Sir Joe is talking about King Colin, and says something like, "Colin could become City’s best player since Peter Doherty".
 
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