Put this up there with Ali Dia in the realm of weird football substitutions.
In recent times, Irish goalkeeper Colin Doyle has seen his career largely defined by strange rules and quirks of English football. He recently joined Bradford City for the princely transfer fee of £1, as a result of his clause in his Blackpool contract, triggered by the club's relegation.
Now at Bradford, Doyle was in the middle of a bizarre selection choice made in last night's EFL Cup game with Bury.
The EFL Cup, by the way, is the artist formerly known as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. As part of the competition's rebranding, the rules state that teams must select at least five first-team players per game. This is defined as players who appeared in the club's previous league game, five who will play in the next league match or the club's five highest appearance-makers this season.
Doyle is first choice with Bradford, but manager Stuart McCall wished to use the cup tie to give some game-time to substitute goalkeeper Rouven Sattelmaier. So to get around the rules, McCall decided to pick Doyle from the start, only to take him off after two minutes.
The Bradford assistant manager later quipped that "I thought he had a poor 45 seconds".
Bizarre. The EFL Cup has come in for a lot of flak this season, the most controversial being the decision to allow Premier League development squads enter the competition.
Colin Doyle, meanwhile, is included in our list of Irish one-cap wonders XI, which you can read here.
[Mirror]
