Keith Duggan listens as Tipperary hurling legend Jimmy Doyle modestly recalls the glories of his playing days

It is one of the most tantalising distractions in sport: matching the great teams of yesteryear against the hyped-up cast of the contemporary scene to see who would triumph.

In hurling, with its history defined by eras of long magnificence and towering figures, the fantasy is particularly appealing. To transport those Brylcreemed Cork boys of 1946 or the Limerick of Mick Mackey's era or Wexford in the 1950s to march in the millennial Croke Park in full bloom and vigour, for 70 minutes of hurling against the cream of the contemporary game . . .

Tickets would be gold dust. The notion occurred to Jimmy Doyle as he reflected on his Tipperary colleagues of 1964, the year when a county which took ownership of that hurling decade felt at its most potent and dynamic. The chief attacking threat of that era used a hospital crutch as a prop as he sat in his living room and explained the hazards of life as a small, lightning-quick scoring genius during that period.

"Cork and Wexford in the 1960s, jeepers, they were big men. Or down to Limerick to play the Quaids or the Hartigans. The backs are small in comparison. I would love if our team could hurl now. In my time, Jon Nolan was a big man, Tom McGarry of Limerick was big and Martin Coogan of Kilkenny. Powerful men. And they could move. They held an oul' retirement do for me not so long ago and Coogan was asked about his job in marking me, what he was told to do. 'Keep Jimmy within arms' reach,' he replied."

In a sense, hurling has always had Jimmy Doyle within arms' reach. He spent his childhood in the terraced houses that border Semple Stadium in Thurles and lives there today, close enough to see Tipperary win a penalty on television and to nip through the turnstiles and dart up to the stands before Eoin Kelly would trot over to take it.

Hours of solitary play in the shadows of that looming stadium, so vast and quiet on the many days when it held no matches, nourished Doyle's childhood imagination. And he can read a clean, unbroken line from the afternoon when his father, a cobbler, presented him with a pair of hurling boots when he was three-years-old through the long journey to becoming the celebrated ex-hurler of today.

A teenage hurling prodigy, a Team of the Millennium man, a winner of six All-Ireland medals and the possessor of a name that still defines the grandeur of youth for Irish people of a certain age.

"I never thought I was anybody," he said more than once on a humid Wednesday afternoon in his home as children roamed through the cloisters of Semple Stadium for a Rice Cup match.

Christy Ring was Jimmy Doyle's boyhood idol. He slides easily back through the decades to the late 1940s, when he was perhaps eight, and he would loiter around the Glenmorgan guesthouse waiting for the Cork team to arrive in Thurles before the match. He had eyes only for the Cloyne man, treating him as a matinee star.

"Nobody paid any attention to me. I could follow them into the hotel and then up to the field and fool my way into the ground. If Christy was playing into the Thurles end, I would stand behind the wire there and watch him for the first half. Then I would make my way around the other end for the second half. I was so small nobody took any notice. I was able to sneak down the tunnel afterwards to the dressingroom and watch him tog off.

"Then I would go back down to the Glenmorgan and watch him eat dinner. He used to mash everything up and then spoon the food into him, and so that was how I had to eat my dinner. Every chap had a favourite player and Ring was my god of that world. He fascinated me. I could never see Ring do any wrong. He was the greatest of all time, in my book anyhow. So it was an extraordinary thing for me when I grew up to eventually hurl on the same field as him and talk with him. And he never disappointed me."

As a goalkeeper at the age of 14 on the Tipperary minor team that lost to Dublin in the 1954 All-Ireland final, Doyle collected minor medals as a dashing, elusive forward over the next two Septembers. Although captain of the 1957 teenage team, he was held in reserve for the senior game against Cork in the Munster championship, the day he first lined out on the same field as Ring.

"In a way, I would have almost preferred to have played minor because I grew up with these lads and this was my team. But I was down in the Glenmorgan with the older team and I said to Paddy Leahy, our boss, that I wanted to go up and have a look at the minors, that I didn't feel right. He warned me not to play, but the mistake they made was to give me my boots and hurley."

When Doyle appeared, Tipperary were 14 points up. "Cork were divils, though," he sighed. "A point, a point, a point, a goal. Next thing I know I am lacing up the boots on the side line. With 10 minutes to go, there was only a point in it and the minor mentor came up and said, 'What do you think, Jimmy?' And I said I was going in. So I hopped in and got four points and we won by five, but it was pure adrenaline. I did in 10 minutes what I should have done in an hour and I was a bit spent for the seniors. Cork beat us."

That was just a deferral of glory, however. Doyle was still a teenager when he collected the first of his All-Ireland senior medals in 1958. His father, Gerry, had been reserve goalkeeper on the Tipperary championship winning teams of 1937 and 1945, and he inherited his eye along with the neat athleticism of his uncle Tommy. The scoring flair was all his own.

"Tommy used to say to me: 'I held Ring. I could hold you too'. And I'd reply, 'I'm not sure, Tommy. I don't know what Christy was at in those games but I think I might get away for three or four, anyway'."

Tommy advised him to get a collie to help him practise his hurling, and so Pal became Doyle's aide and opponent and coach in the hours he spent banging the ball to nobody at all behind Semple Stadium. Using the crutch again - the result of an accident while moving a table from a shed, when a stray brick broke his ankle - he demonstrated how he would have to strike the ball at speed before Pal would leap to grab it. Then he would chase it to control it before it hit the ground. He repeated the drill thousands of times, even after the dog had begun to slow and lack the energy for the sport.

"That was the best dog. I had to wear black glasses around the town for a week because I cried so much when he died."

For over a decade, the style and craft from those dedicated hours helped Doyle win acclaim and admiration he never became comfortable with. Away from the game, he worked as a cobbler with his father, and then in the Assumption Hospital in Thurles. On Sundays, though, his feats sent currents of static through wireless sets across the breadth of the country.

Through the 1960s Tipperary's All-Ireland successes were like an endless harvest. It got so the homecomings felt flat. As a lissome, crowd-pleasing forward, Doyle took punishment in those uncompromising matches - a smashed collarbone against Wexford, a broken ankle from a stroke delivered playing Cork as he rose to fetch a ball overhead.

"I'm good friends with the man that did it to this day. But there was no televisions then and I suppose if some of the stuff that went on was played back, there would have been trouble. That was the way of it."

It was the fear of delivering such an injudicious blow that made Doyle take the hardest step of all. His waning coincided with the demise of Tipperary as an endless hurling power. In 1971, Tipperary won an All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, but by then Doyle was getting discs pushed back before games, and in the team the fire was out. Shortly afterwards, driving back from one of those chill and ugly autumn league games against Kildare, Gerry offered his son the only piece of advice about the game.

"There had been a bit of an oul' rowon the field. He waited until we dropped John Flanagan off and were alone, and he said, 'Jimmy, I think you might be getting a bit slow. I think your time is done. Retire. Get out. For the simple reason you might hit someone and regret it for the rest of your life'."

Doyle ended his Tipperary career as the substitute goalkeeper in 1973. Two years later, he won his 11th and last county title against Silvermines with Thurles Sarsfields and quit. His father passed away the next winter. Doyle partially stayed involved, coaching Portlaoise to a succession of county titles in the early 1980s.

He was rejected when he went for the Tipperary minor management post one year, something that still smarts. While he aged, the face retained a lot of its boyish, handsome qualities, and he never learned to grow comfortable with the expectant question, "Are you the Jimmy Doyle?"

"I never thought I was anything. There wasn't much made of it. Like, someone said I stood out, but you don't think you do. For instance, I would never see the crowd on the field. The hurling today where they stand on the wire and kiss the jersey, I think it is all soccer, all bunkum. It's ridiculous. I just scored and ran back to position. That was our job."

When Thurles Sarsfields organised a This Is Your Life, the fear was, according to Ger Corbett, Jimmy would bolt the room out of mortification. And he was overcome with embarrassment but also thrilled to see so many players of the era. Because leaving the game shook him deeply.

Not so long ago he contributed to a moving piece with Breaking Ball, walking the field in Semple Stadium and talking about that universal sporting feeling of when the game leaves you.

"I have it there," he said, gesturing at the VCR. "It never eases off. When you retire, it is there for years. You miss the boys. You are with them for years and they are like brothers to you. You always hope you will meet them again, but not enough. An odd time. Not enough. It would break your heart. Why wouldn't it, God almighty?"

He donated the medals to Croke Park. As a town, Thurles still feels the same to him and he is happy to be just a neighbour, courtly and easy-going. He cannot wait to be rid of the infernal crutches which make him feel as if he has just picked up another hurling injury. Although he cannot return to the field with the team of 1964, he still has faith in Tipperary and is still immersed in the modern game.

At last year's All-Ireland final at Croke Park, he was introduced to Willie John Ring for the first time. Willie John told him about one evening years back in Cloyne when he went to confession and left his bike in at Christy's house. When he returned to collect the bike, Christy was sitting at the fire and wanted to talk.

"He said Christy told him he was watching this young fella for Tipperary playing minor in 1955 and 1956 and by '57 hitting towards senior. Christy said, 'I am watching him for the last three years and he is coming on in bounds. I think my era is going out, it is time to go'. I always wanted to tell you that. Christy was watching you the whole time."

Doyle was uncomfortable with this praise and delighted by it. As he thanked the Cork man, he walked away realising it had been years since he felt so light on his feet in Croke Park.