LAST UPDATE | 24 Mar 2020

BEFORE THE CORONAVIRUS outbreak, life had been going well for Eoin Doyle.

With 25 goals in 36 appearances in all competitions, the Irish striker had been enjoying arguably the best season of his career, while his Swindon Town side looked on course for promotion from League Two, behind leaders Crewe Alexandra on goal difference only and with a game in hand.

But of course, there are more important things than football, as Doyle acknowledges.

It’s been nearly two weeks since his last training session, while the stress of the situation has been exacerbated by the fact that his family have been forced into self-isolation, after wife Ciara displayed some symptoms of Covid-19.

“She could possibly have got them from me,” Doyle tells The42. “I was a bit run down myself, but nothing had really shown — no coughs or anything major like that.

“I’d get the sweats in the night and a bit of a sore throat, but you’re hearing now that everything is a symptom as well. So I think everyone thinks they have it — it’s a bit of a unique time.

“Over here is a nightmare as well, because Ciara rings up and all they say is ‘just don’t leave the house for seven days’. She can’t get a test, so it’s just tough.”

The lack of sport and his family’s well-being are not the only matters of concern for Doyle.

The Dubliner is also running a business with fellow footballer Danny Ventre, who he played with at Sligo Rovers between 2009 and 2011.

Situated in The Park Community Centre, Ballycullen, Dublin, Lily’s according to its website “enables working parents to avail of high quality and affordable childcare”.

The idea had been a couple of years in the making and was launched last September. Though not living in Dublin, Doyle checks in daily with those running it closer to home and is involved in managing the payroll among other activities.

It’s just been slow, consistent, steady growth. We were really in our tracks, come the 12-month mark this September, we would really have been in a strong place. It’s disappointing for it to get paused as such. We had good momentum, I get a lot of enquiries from January on. When the Christmas period finishes, people are thinking of childcare for the next year. Our numbers in September are quite strong, kids-wise and all. 

“Obviously, regarding staff, we agreed to pay them up until the original closure date, which was 29 March. Everyone knows it’s going to get extended, so the likelihood is we’ll have to temporarily let the staff go.

“We’ll come to some agreement with them and give them what we can. But for the business to survive, it depends on whether the parents we have keep their jobs. So obviously if one of the parents loses their jobs, you’d imagine childcare would be the first thing to go. So that’d be our biggest worry when the schools do re-open. Because when the schools re-open, we’ll re-open. It’s testing times for us.

“But please God, when all the dust settles, economically, it’s not as bad as what people might think, and it survives.

“We obviously want to grow it. From this last couple of weeks, myself and Ciara are even more adamant that we are going to be moving home as soon as possible. The long-term focus would definitely be to move home and get my hands on it and try grow it at a quicker rate maybe, which can’t really happen with me being over here.

“It’s a good business and we feel like we’re doing good things for the community as well in the sense that we’re providing childcare for the family. Where we opened is where I grew up as well, so it’s nice for me to get back and see people.”

Doyle runs his childcare business with former Sligo team-mate Danny Ventre. Donall Farmer / INPHO Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO

At 32, Doyle is closer to the end of his football career than the beginning, while the last few weeks have only served to highlight how precarious sport and indeed employment of any form can be.

“It’s been a worry for me the last three or four years, wracking the brain, thinking of stuff to do [after football]. This was a lot of planning, thinking of stuff to put in place, we ticked a lot of boxes to make sure we were doing the right thing along the way.

“Now that it’s been paused, it’s hard to take, but I can’t act the victim here, everyone in the world at the minute is in the same position as us.”

Similarly, the survival of a number of football clubs is far from a given. The sport in Britain has already suffered, with recent news that National League side Barnet have been forced to make all non-playing staff redundant, while the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Obviously, we’re kept out of the loop of that. It’s a worry. It’s keeping me up at night. It’s difficult. But we don’t know. I know the EFL have pledged a big lump of cash into the three leagues there. But from what I’m hearing, it’s divvied up and it’s not equally paid out either, so you’d imagine the likes of Swindon in the fourth tier won’t be getting as much as others. It’s a difficult situation and I don’t think anyone can have an answer for anything, because no one knows how this is going to play out.

“From me looking at Irish media and the British media, you can see it’s a bit lackadaisical over here towards the coronavirus.

“This time last week, I would have thought they’d squeeze the rest of the season maybe into June. But the more I look into it now, I think we might be lucky to see it finished at all really. 

“I know everyone’s not going to stay fit and healthy, but as long as the majority of people can get back on their feet as quickly as possible, I think we can get football back at it. The NHS as well over here, there’s talk of if football plays, ambulances are used, and they can’t be used as long as this pandemic is happening. So I think basically this needs to finish and then football can start after that. When that’ll be I don’t know and it’s going to be interesting times to see what happens with players. The likes of myself, I’m out of contract in June, so if it stretches past that date, what’s going to happen? It’s testing for everyone. We’ll just have to play it by day.”

You can read more about Eoin Doyle’s childcare business here.

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