The homegrown hero w
LEO VARADKAR said not all heroes wear capes – some wear scrubs and gowns. But some also wear Bray Wanderers jerseys. They wear those famous Green and White stripes as they break records. They wear it as they break hearts. They wear it with a smile and they wear it with pride. They wear it as they score 90 goals for their hometown club and make over 300 appearances. Not all heroes wear capes – but this hero is Kieran ‘Tarzan’ O’Brien.
Rarely does someone encapsulate the local boy done good story so beautifully. Having shone so brightly for Wolfe Tone in his youth, the Fassaroe resident got the call to attend the Carlisle Grounds. That was the first chapter of what would be a marvelous story which featured FAI Cups, promotions, relegations, trips to the USA and much more. It’s a story worth reading. It’s the story of ‘Tarzan’ O’Brien.
‘I grew up in Wolfe Tone in Bray. My Ma and Da have unfortunately passed away. Lived in Wolfe Tone for over 20 years I’d say. I have two sisters and a brother, Bob is the brother, Denise and Liz are the sisters,’ is how ‘Tarzan’ starts our reflection on a wonderful football career filled with highs and lows, friendships, respect, celebrations, commiserations and everything in between.
‘I was always into the football, always out on the road, kicking it in the house. Used to love Match of the Day and all that. I was a big fan from early on. My dad was a golfer so I didn’t get it off him. The brother played a bit, he’s a little bit older. I used to knock a ball around with him. He played local, the Wicklow League. He played with Wolfe Tone Wanderers and Lens United, those sort of teams,’ continued ‘Tarzan’.
Get used to the word ‘local’ in the context of this man’s footballing career. Like almost every young child growing up in Ireland the ultimate dream is to play football in England. But for the vast majority that dream will never be achieved and while some might see that as failure, others move on and never stop striving to be the best they can be. ‘Tarzan’ O’Brien was one of those players.
‘I played with Wolfe Tone, there was no Wicklow League at the time. We used to play in the North Wicklow/South Dublin League. Stephen Mulvey would have been the manager of the team then, he’s a butcher now in the Vevay there in Bray. There was no Wicklow League at the time and that’s where I started playing,’ he said.
Even at that young age Kieran was standing out. With Wolfe Tone he was playing a year ahead of himself and although he was asked to go down to play with Joey’s at the time, his love of local and an apparent dislike for travelling saw him stay loyal to Wicklow football.
‘We were quite a good side, won a couple of trophies. Used to play against the likes of Joeys and
Ballybrack and the likes of them, quite good sides. It was under-9 at the time, 11-a-side. Joeys were the big team around in Dublin at the time, and they seem to still be. I played with them for about two years, I was playing a year ahead of myself, and a few of the lads decided to go to Joeys. I was asked to go down myself, but I dropped down (in age), stayed with Wolfe Tone at my age group until I was about 13. They wouldn’t have been as good a side, I didn’t win anything with them as far as I can remember, but I always seemed to have a happy knack of scoring. If we were beaten 4-2, I’d get the two, that sort of way. We were playing against St Fergal’s and Enniskerry.
‘It was a bit of loyalty and also, back in the day, even the likes of Sallynoggin was like a million miles away. Nobody drove. I just thought the hassle of having to jump on a bus at 10 years of age to go down to training or that. Wolfe Tone, the pitch, I could walk down the lane and I’d be at training, it’s only five minutes from the house,’ he said.
That fondness for his home patch was something that Bray Wanderers supporters would be grateful for many years later as ‘Tarzan’ lit up the Carlisle Grounds and helped bring FAI Cup glory back to Bray in 1999. For now, though, he had to navigate his way through adolescence and his humble beginnings in the Wicklow League. Along the way came something of a significant knock back when he wasn’t selected for the Kennedy Cup team despite having scored in most of the trials. Kieran believes it was because the manager was looking for physically bigger players to take on the likes of Wexford and Waterford.
‘I stayed with Wolfe Tone for a while and that team broke up. The team that kept beating us, St Fergal’s, I went with them and played with them in the Wicklow League. It wasn’t a big jump because a lot of the lads on the St Fergal’s team, I would have been in school with them anyway.
‘They were a good side. Ardmore and Greystones had good sides that time as well. There were still people coming from the leagues, Valeview, there was a lad from there looking for me to go out, Leicester Celtic in Dublin - the Wicklow League had obviously started at this stage – they had come knocking on the door for me to go out and play with them. At that stage, still the same, I wasn’t jumping on a bus and travelling down there, probably one of your parents would have to drive you and I wasn’t going to do that to them when both of them were working.
‘I stayed loyal to the Wicklow League. I had a bit of a knock back then when I wasn’t picked for the Kennedy Cup team when I was 13. I scored in all the trials and I don’t think any of the managers would have gave out if I had of been on the team.
‘What I heard after was that we were playing against the Wexford and Waterford leagues and whoever the manager was at the time was looking for big strong fellas, and I was only a slight fella but I was still able to score. But he thought I was too skinny. I heard that afterwards. That was a bit of a knockback. I was thinking to myself that after being loyal to Wicklow for all the years and then to be told you’re too small. That knocked the confidence for a while and I stopped playing football for a year or two,’ he said.
The former St Killian’s student was enticed back when St Fergal’s entered a team in the under-18 league in Dublin before the inevitable jump to adult football in the Wicklow League. But before we move on, we wondered about the nickname and how it came to be.
‘Stephen Mulvey, the manager of the schoolboys team, started calling me ‘Tarzan’. My Da’s nickname was ‘Tarzan’. I didn’t find out for years and years why he was called it. I heard some funny stories but it’s just a simple thing. When he was a youngster him and a few friends were up in Lord Meath’s woods and two young lads got stuck up a tree and couldn’t get down. Of course, me da was able to go up and take the two of them down on his back and the lads said, ‘for f**ks sake, you’re like Tarzan’ and that’s how that stuck.
‘For years and years, I was asked when I was scoring goals I was always asked where it came from and I was never told. I had heard a few (stories) but I was waiting for my own father to tell me. It was never a thing. But Stephen Mulvey would have known my Da and when I started going training, he used to say, ‘Ah you’re young ‘Tarzan’ aren’t you’, and the kids heard this and thought it was funny and they started calling me it from the word go. The older brother never got stuck with it,’ he explained.
But back to the football. ‘The league at that stage – a lot of the teams were folding at 15s – so our team folded in the end. I didn’t play for two years. Fergal’s got back up and running for an under-18 league and they asked me to come back and I went back playing again. We were playing in Dublin, against some very good sides. We got to a very big cup final, can’t remember the name of it, but we were against Stella Maris and they had seven players who were leaving the following season to go to England. They were that good. We were beating them with two minutes to go but we ended up losing 2-1.
‘That kind of got me back into football and then the brother was playing with Wolfe Tone Wanderers and I went training with them and signed for them and they were my first senior team. Lovely and local again, back to the Vevay. I wasn’t moving very far; it was either the Vevay or up to Ballywaltrim.
‘It took me a while to break in there (Wolfe Tone Wanderers), because I was only a slight lad, 18 years old, hadn’t put much weight on, so, again, going into a man’s league, I don’t know. It was frustrating because with the knock back (Kennedy Cup) and getting back into football I didn’t want to be going to games and training... I loved training, that’s the one thing I loved, I always loved training, but going and you weren’t getting a minute and you weren’t getting on. The mad thing is I’ll always remember my first start. I had said it to the brother, ‘if I don’t get a run today, I’m, jacking this in.’
‘We were playing against Enniskerry, away. He brought me on and I was only on the pitch five or 10 minutes, I was centre-forward, and for some reason my mindset said, it was a corner, so I said I’m not going to win a corner, go outside the box, and like that the ball was headed out to me and I took a touch and put it into the top corner. It’s kind of why I remember the goal. Eventually I started to get a few games with them and got into the team. They were a good side, a lot of good players who had been around the league. It was a good experience for the first season, getting into senior football