Bernard Brogan on his Dublin highs and lows
Bernard Brogan did it all as a Dublin footballer, winning seven All-Irelands in a 15-year career that had its share of setbacks and no shortage of fun...
IT’S breakfast time on a Wednesday morning and Bernard Brogan is on the move. Even for someone who established PepTalk Wellbeing, being embraced by employers to bring a work-life balance and high performance culture to the corporate world, it seems there is still sometimes no getting around Dublin rush-hour traffic. Especially with the schools back.
First on the to-do list is a morning slot booked to record an audio section of The Hill, his new autobiography with Kieran Shannon. Another few meetings then lined up before a lunchtime date with an old pal and former Dublin team mate – Jack McCaffrey.
Last summer, it was hard to imagine Dublin football without the pair.
While Brogan’s retirement was flagged, current All-Star McCaffrey – a qualified doctor – is currently not involved with the county team in a year where frontline workers have been at heart of the response to the pandemic.
This time last year, Brogan was still basking in being a seven-time All-Ireland winner, the book chronicling the struggle to prove his worth to Jim Gavin (below) after the cruciate injury of 2018 that threatened his career. Where making the match-day 26 for the 2019 replay against Kerry wasn’t enough to bow out with an on-field cameo, It did, at least, allow him a moment on the field after the final whistle to savour the historic five-in-a-row with his young twins, before embracing retirement.
The book unravels some of the ties that bind, in the dressingroom and beyond. It captures the essence of a character like
McCaffrey who ‘always brings a smile to your face because he tends to always have one on his’.
When Brogan once asked him his trigger, his cue word, when the pressure might come on during a game (Brogan’s was clicking his fingers), he ‘blurted out some line which I hadn’t a clue what it meant or even what language it was in: Latin, Elvish, Ewokese?
‘Sounded like, ‘Dove-e Andy See Too-voy-ya see-gain!’
As Brogan says now, ‘It’s exactly Jack. When he said it to me, I took out my phone. I tried to get it down, phonetically pronounce it, and he just started laughing. He told me then the real spelling. I thought this is gold.’
Turns out his trigger for the 2019 final against Kerry was old tongue from the Robert Jordan fantasy novel, The Wheel of Time.
Which means? Time To Toss The Dice.
Brogan’s book shines a light on the
Dublin success story, the rolling of the All-Ireland rock uphill until the 2011 breakthrough under Pat Gilroy, who emerges as such an important figure. The fun – with insight into the squad characters – is just one fascinating element along the way.
‘All I’ve known the last 15 years is being a Dublin footballer,’ he admits.
‘A lot of my identity has been wrapped up in it. Even in work, I went out eight years ago and founded Legacy. The first four years of that, people wanted to meet you for a coffee as a Dublin footballer. They didn’t really know what you did. You had to prove yourself.
‘Even though every door was open, it was hard to get credibility. We just had to work hard. The AIG opportunity gave us a great chance.
‘Looking back on it now, it’s weird, it hasn’t really sunk in. Maybe because there hasn’t been any football! I thought when the book came out we’d have six All-Irelands under our belts, lads would be easing into a bit of club championship and a few pints. I’m feeling that bit of tension about coming into the Championship and telling a few stories about different lads – obviously all legends of lads and there’s nothing in there that isn’t respectful – but yeah, there is a bit of nerves from me.
‘Why I was comfortable to do that was, there was no silver bullet. No one nugget or two nuggets that made this Dublin team special, that created the culture. It was down to the attitude of the individuals, the commitment everyone gave, good leadership, hard work and a bit of luck as well.
‘No matter what I’d say in a book, you can’t replicate a Kevin McManamon, a Michael Darragh Macauley, the power of Con O’Callaghan or the pace of Jack McCaffrey. Yes, other teams have their own unique individuals but their character, prowess – Paul Mannion so willing to learn, so humble – that’s a behaviour set that’s built from when they were kids. I talked about five or six of us having our fathers play before us, passing on the value set of what GAA means. There are so many variables that make the team up.
‘And with Jim [Gavin] stepping down last year, it’s a new set-up. I know zero now. I purposely haven’t asked anyone a question when I meet people. That allowed me to tell my story.’
The modern sports memoir has pushed the envelope in terms of personal stories. It has lifted the lids on aspects of Irish society that were once taboo. Drinking. Depression. Gambling. From Liam Dunne to Dessie Farrell to Oisín McConville and Cathal McCarron’s tales of trying to beat the odds.
Brogan’s tale was never going to fit into that category. The easy charm, the lightbulb personality that has made him a pin-up and poster boy for a golden era of Dublin football, has also helped him mirror that kind of blue-chip success off the field, through the setting up of PR and sponsorship agency Legacy Communications with his cousin James, and expanding to PepTalk Wellbeing and a portfolio of bar businesses.
A drive, ambition and blue-collar streak has underpinned that career arc, the capacity to knuckle down and put in the hours.
It’s what explains how a player who couldn’t make the cut at underage level in Dublin, who wasn’t picked at minor in a starting squad, and who lived in the shadow of his own household hero in older brother Alan, beat his sibling to Footballer of the Year in 2010 by 12 months and went on to win seven All-Irelands.
Son and heir to a proud family tradition, it takes in his father Bernard’s part in the Kevin Heffernan revolution and how that influenced the next generation of Brogans to chase the same dreams.
Like Henry Shefflin’s autobiography, the book reveals the self-doubt and struggles that afflict even the best, especially when a cruciate knee injury threatens to act as a final, painful, full-stop. There’s the struggle of being left out in his final season or two by Gavin. From the starting 15. Then the match-day 26. Then even from the internal 15 versus 15 trial games.
The image conjured of him going up the back pitch to practice when being the only player left off in one internal game is a humbling one.
‘THOSE YEARS WE PARTIED HARD AND IT WENT TO THE NEXT DAY’
There’s Pat Gilroy tearing strips off him in front of the group – ‘Oh, I’m Bernard Brogan, I’m special, I don’t have to track back and tackle!’ and living with being a lightning rod for how Dublin cashed in commercially on their profile. How Gilroy had a transformative effect in reaching the summit in 2011, and on Brogan’s game.
The sense of fun along the way shines through. Chapter 11 – ‘In Ongar We Went Longer’ covers the year, 2009, spent living with Ross McConnell, Éamon Fennell and Stephen Cluxton.
‘A lad’s pad, a high-performance hub and a party house all rolled into one.
‘That year was great,’ he says. ‘We came together in Ongar to set up a high-performance environment, which we did. But we enjoyed ourselves as well. Myself Ross and Éamon more than Clucko. Clucko is a great character. He’s obviously very quiet and reserved but he’s the best of craic for having a few drinks with, one of the wittiest lads ever.
‘We learned from him as well – his mindset, his attention to detail, his commitment. All three of us learned a lot living with Stephen. And, yeah, it was great fun.’
The stocking of the fridge with drink for the post-match parties. Declan Lally sending Rory Kavanagh through the neighbour’s wooden fence when the Donegal players joined them for a blow-out after blowing up against Kerry in the infamous ‘startled earwigs’ 2009 All-Ireland quarter-final.
‘We were all licking our wounds after a tough weekend in Croke Park. Met the Donegal lads. They’re as wild as you get! Great characters as well. Those were the years you partied hard, and it went into the next day. That was all part of the journey as well. In the Pillar [Caffrey] days, you always had that Day Two. We had golf in Hollystown, pints, a lot of times ended up in Club M in Temple Bar with a load of tourists. That was before Coppers was even busy on a Monday night.’
Was it of its time? Do those days now have to be gone at the highest level?
‘Definitely the two days and the lack of recovery. There is always space for people getting together and having a few pints.’
How Pat Gilroy challenged him and Dublin is revealing. And not without its lighter moments, Brogan’s trip to the White House as part of the Irish party meeting President
Obama for St Patrick’s Day segueing into a night in New York. Texting Gilroy that he was still good for the weekend match against Mayo was expected; wrongly sending the manager a text meant for a pal about being ‘in bits after Pasha nightclub’ a tale of the unexpected.
‘I obviously had the fear of God for a few minutes!’ he laughs. ‘Then I thought, do you know what, he’ll probably laugh at it, he’s that type of character.
‘He’d only finished playing a year before he started managing so he’s a very down-to-earth person, a leader.
‘If you didn’t laugh at that you’d cry. In the middle of Times Square, after me saying to him I’m good to go against Mayo – Jesus!’
No more than anyone, lockdown has been a test, he and his wife Keira trying to juggle home life and the twins Donagh and Keadán with hectic work schedules.
He kept ticking over with a few 5k runs as St Oliver Plunkett-Eoghan Ruadh returned to action as the games returned, a familiar face
helping with one workout. ‘Philly McMahon took me on a virtual one in the back garden one day and knocked the socks off me!’
Launching the book is another string to his bow.
So did he ever think his career as a Dublin footballer would encompass being a darling of Hill 16, Dublin’s third all-time top scorer, bring him on a journey where he would be in the White House greeting the Obamas or introducing Cristiano Ronaldo at a Pendulum Summit in Lisbon?
‘No. Or involve seven All-Irelands. I definitely didn’t. I was 23 making my debut – I wasn’t sure I’d get out there at all. The cruciate at 20, there was knockback after knockback. That’s what probably made me stronger, made me want it more.’