Soft side of Brady clear as old pals reminisce
WHEN it was announced the kick-off to the Liam Brady book launch in the Mansion House would be 15 minutes late, there was a shout from the rear of the Round Room, ‘What about the bar?’
A pint wasn’t needed.
At the end of a dry night, there was hardly a dry eye in the audience — mostly men, mostly 50plus — as laughter was the theme for the return of ‘The Three Musketeers of Montrose’, Messrs Brady, Dunphy and Giles.
‘Not a good panel, a great panel,’ quipped Brady as the curtain fell on two hours of chat and chuckles in the dutiful care of Joe Molloy of Newstalk, who let the chat go with the flow. Bill O’Herlihy would have approved.
The launch of Brady’s autobiography, Born To Be A Footballer, was a game of two halves; with Brady on stage for an hour with Molloy before his buddies joined him after a half-time refreshment — Dunphy brought a large glass of red wine with him on stage.
Predictably, Brady hardly got a word in as his fellow Northsiders meandered down memory lane, at times with stories that had little to do with the chief reason they were there.
But it didn’t matter. To see and hear the triumvirate, yapping away, was a throwback to their days in RTÉ with the late Billo when their observations, as the TV panel without peer, set the tone for debate.
They were true to character and personality; at least two of them were. Excitable Eamo got emotional at 78, while Gilesy, gravitas to a tee at 82, played it straight.
‘I’m the only one ever invited to a book launch who gets slaughtered in the book,’ cried Dunphy.
As for Brady, he delivered oneliners and yarns from his career to beat the band. So much for coming across on the box as Mr Grumpy at times.
Many of the stories are covered in his book, a must-read co-written with journalist Larry Ryan.
When the teenage Brady, known to everyone at Arsenal as Chippy, was playing for the reserves, George Graham said to him one day, ‘Hey Chippy, any decent players in the reserves?’
‘One or two,’ said Brady.
‘What about this fella Brady, Chippy? I’m hearing great things about him. What’s he like?’ continued Graham.
‘He’s f ***** g great, George.’ Fifty years since his Arsenal debut, Brady recalled playing against Liverpool at Anfield in his first season. With the title on the line, he was up against Tommy Smith, a renowned hard man.
After weaving past Smith early on and getting a cross in, Brady was collared by his marker. ‘Hey you, ye little Irish twat. Do that again and I’ll break your effin’ neck.’
He played it safe but Arsenal still won 1-0 which helped Leeds win the League.
Brady’s memory is razor-sharp, even if there were things he’d rather forget.
He winced when Molloy mentioned how Harry Kane, then 11, got away from Arsenal when he was Academy director. ‘Did you have to bring that up?’
But he showed his soft side shortly before leaving a post he held for 18 years. Telling a 15year-old Danny Ballard he was being let go, when Ballard began to cry, Brady broke down too. ‘Okay you can stay, Danny,’ he said.
Today, Ballard is with Sunderland and a Northern Ireland international, and Brady is delighted for him.
After leaving Arsenal in 1980 — he still winces at not scoring his penalty in the Cup Winners’ Cup final — Brady spent six and a half years in Italy with very few regrets. Well, maybe one.
At Juventus, he took a call from the club inviting him to a function in the club offices in Turin for a reception for Luciano Pavarotti. ‘Who’s he?’ asked Brady. ‘He’s an opera singer.’ ‘I said, “No thanks. That’s not for me”. What an idiot,’ he recalled.
For Ireland, Brady was capped at 18 as Giles knew a diamond when he saw one.
‘Liam was easy on the eye in possession but he was also effective,’ said Giles who, as player-manager, had the authority to pick whom he wanted. ‘Before then, the main contribution to being a selector of the team was to know f**k all about football,’ said Giles.
Brady played for 16 years but never graced the stage of a major championship.
Before a knee injury put paid to his Euro ’88 dream, he had been given a four-game ban which he appealed to UEFA.
‘We went to Switzerland. There were translators in the room. When Pat O’Brien, the FAI president from Cork, spoke, I couldn’t understand a word he said,’ said Brady.
‘Des Casey, the FAI’s delegate to UEFA, said, “Leave it to me, Liam. I have it covered”.
‘Des said, “Liam Brady is to Irish football what Michel Platini is to France and what Diego Maradona is to Brazil”!’
Despite the nerves, Brady’s ban was cut in half.
Brady had retired by the time of Italia ’90, after being substituted before half-time by Jack Charlton in a friendly which led to a blazing dressing room row.
Charlton subsequently wrote a note of apology to Brady, ‘a demonstration of sentiment that I didn’t expect from Jack’.
Brady can be a sentimental softie himself. Just ask Danny Ballard.