A few weeks ago, Stephen Hunt told us that his former Reading FC manager Steve Coppell delivered the best half-time team-talk he'd heard during his pro career - all without talking amazingly enough.
Turns out he was also quite handy at managing to stifle the interest of opposition clubs on Transfer Deadline Day as Kevin Doyle found out.
The former Ireland striker joined us on The Keith Andrews Show and he told his former Boys in Green team-mate about the Deadline Day when Tottenham tried to sign him from Reading - only to find a technological road block.
How can a club stop a transfer from happening on Deadline Day?
Quite simply as it happens as Kevin Doyle tells the tale of the time Tottenham tried to sign him from Reading #phonesoff #KeithAndrewsShow pic.twitter.com/UsdlWwWYMu
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) February 15, 2018
"I remember at Reading on transfer deadline day, getting a call actually to go Spurs. [They said], 'Kevin, we can't get through to your club. They've all turned off their phones,'" he told Keith.
"[Tottenham] had just sold Berbatov to Manchester United and they were desperate to get someone in and I was at Reading doing well."
As Keith said, if he were in Doyle's shoes, he would have "done a Peter Odemwingie on it" and drove to Tottenham's training ground to get the deal over the line.
Ultimately, Doyle was in Wexford on that particular deadline day and swimming across the Irish Sea wasn't an option.
"We'd been given a couple of days off. [Coppell] had told everyone at Reading to shut their phone off once the day before had gone; he said there's no one coming or leaving."
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