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Biog

A product of Celtic Boys Club, Govan born Ronnie Coyle was a Scotland schoolboy international who signed for Celtic in January 1979. He had first came to prominence as Scotland's centre back in the 5-4 schoolby international victory against England at Wembley when Paul McStay inspired the Scots to victory.

A hard-tackling, no nonsense defender Coyle made his first team debut as a sub in a 1-0 league defeat at home to Dundee on May 4th 1985. He had already established an excellent central defensive partnership with Paul McGugan in a successful mid 1980's Celtic reserve side.

The centre-half made only one further appearance. He was thrown into the senior team after Paul McGugan broke his foot against Rangers leaving an already sieve-like defense even more open. He played in the next game, a 4-2 defeat to Dundee Utd at Tannadice on 4th January 1986 on a day where Celtic found themselves 4-1 down at half time. Unfortanately he was upon against perhaps the best forward line in Scottish football at that time - Bannon, Gallacher, Kirkwood, Sturrock and Dodds. It also has to be said that he was given little assistance from the experienced Roy Aitken who was well out of form.

He never really got the chance to prove his worth at Celtic and never really recovered from being thrown into a team in a desperate state. The following season he continued with the Reserves before going on loan to Middlesbrough in December 1986. He was sold to Middlesbrough for £5,000 in March 1987.

He returned to Scotland to join up with Frank Connor at Raith Rovers in January 1988 and continued to play with Raith right up to 1995 when they won promotion to the Premier Division. He was in the Raith team that defeated Celtic to win the League Cup in 94/95 and took part in their European campaign the following season. He left Raith at the end of that season and had spells with Ayr Utd, Albion Rovers and East Fife befor retiring from the game in 1999.

He is now believed to be working in marketing.