We continue our trawl through the history books where we look back on players that have donned the red and white over the years. As always, we’re choosing those players that weren’t exactly superstars. This week, we go for a striker that played early to middle 2000s and made a shade over 100 appearances for the Lads. Scottish striker Kevin Kyle.
Born in the ferry port town of Stranraer, Kevin Kyle’s footballing career started as a youth teamer at Ayr United then of the named Scottish First Division (now Championship). The Lads swooped to bring him south of the border in 1998 where he would become a regular for the Black Cats youth and reserve teams whilst playing a back up to the Quinn-Phillips partnership. Kyle made his first team debut as a 76th minute replacement for Quinn in a 1-0 away win at Southampton: the penultimate away fixture of the 2000-01 season. He would go on to make a further two substitute appearances in the remaining games of that season.
To further his experience, Kyle would spend spells on loan at Huddersfield, Darlington and Rochdale. His first goal for the Lads would come in the Third Round of the League Cup at Arsenal when the Lads recovered from a 2-0 half time deficit to send the Gunners out of the competition with Kyle scoring the first strike in that comeback. After Phillips had departed for Southampton and Quinn had retired, Kyle would spearhead the Lads attack in the First Division following relegation. His first league goal for the Lads would come in the seventh game of the season as the Lads would see off Crystal Palace 2-1 at the Stadium of Light, the first of 16 strikes in all competitions that campaign which would end in play-off heartbreak at the semi-final stage on penalties to Palace.
Unfortunately, injuries would hamper his career in the red and white afterwards, and he was transferred to Coventry City early in the 2006-07 season with the Lads receiving £600K from the Sky Blues for his services. His spell at Coventry was not too much of a success and during his two and half year stint in the Midlands he only amassed 44 appearances, and was loaned to Wolves and Hartlepool United when chances with Coventry became slim. Kyle’s contract was cancelled by mutual consent in January 2009 and shortly afterwards he returned to Scotland to join Kilmarnock as a free agent. After 18 months at Rugby Park, Kyle swapped the West Coast for the East Coast: signing for Heart of Midlothian. Two seasons on, he was released from Tynecastle having made just 22 appearances for the Gorgie-based side.
After trials at Dunfermline, St. Johnstone and Hearts he joined then Third Division Rangers after impressing then manager Ally McCoist. However, he only managed eight appearances at Ibrox before he was released. His final stop in his career was where to it had all started, rejoining Ayr 15 years after leaving them for Sunderland. Regrettably, financial issues would mean that he saw his contract cancelled in January 2014 at which point he decided to hang up his boots from a career that saw 310 appearances with 68 goals and 10 international caps for Scotland. Since retiring, Kyle was last seen working on the oil rigs, he also took to darts and managed to feature in the BDO Scottish Open darts tournament.
Overall, Kyle was an honest hard-working pro, who wasn’t amazing but did a good job for us in the Championship and would have probably led our line better this season than any of the players we’ve had up front. During a pre-season in America, he joined ALS staff for a kickabout and was thoroughly good craic. On another occasion, when one of our former writers criticised his goals return on a drunken night in Ku Club, he bought them a pint and asked for advice on how to improve his game.
