Liam Brady

Liam Brady

Personal information
Date of birth	(1956-02-13) 13 February 1956
Place of birth	Dublin, Ireland
Position(s)	Midfielder
Team information
Current team	Arsenal (Head of Youth Development)
Youth career
	St. Kevin's Boys
	Home Farm
1971–1973	Arsenal
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1973–1980	Arsenal	235	(43)
1980–1982	Juventus	76	(15)
1982–1984	Sampdoria	57	(6)
1984–1986	Internazionale	58	(5)
1986–1987	Ascoli	17	(0)
1987–1990	West Ham United	89	(9)
Total		532	(78)
International career
1974–1990	Republic of Ireland	72	(9)
Managerial career
1991–1993	Celtic
1993–1995	Brighton & Hove Albion
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Liam Brady (born 13 February 1956) is an Irish former association football player, and former assistant manager of the Republic of Ireland national football team.

In his playing days, Brady was a midfielder renowned for his elegant technical skills, most notably his left foot, and his high-quality passing and close control. He found success both with Arsenal (one FA Cup title) and Juventus (two Serie A titles), and won 72 caps for the Republic of Ireland national football team.

Brady is now head of Youth Development at Arsenal, and is a frequent television pundit with RTÉ Sport.

Club career

Born in Dublin, Brady started his career at Arsenal, moving to London to join the side on schoolboy forms in 1971, at the age of 15. He turned professional on his 17th birthday in 1973, and made his debut on 6 October 1973 against Birmingham City as a substitute for Jeff Blockley, and put in an assured performance. However his next match, in a North London derby against Tottenham Hotspur, Brady had a poor match, and Arsenal manager Bertie Mee decided from then on to use the young Irishman sparingly for the time being. Brady ended the 1973–74 season with 13 appearances (four of them as substitute) to his name.

In 1974–75 Brady was a first-team regular at Arsenal, and shone as a rare light in a side that hovered close to relegation for a couple of seasons in the mid-1970s. With the appointment of Terry Neill as manager and the return of Don Howe as coach, Brady found his best form. His passing provided the ammunition for Arsenal's front men such as Malcolm Macdonald and Frank Stapleton, and Arsenal reached three FA Cup finals in a row between 1978 and 1980. Arsenal won only the middle of the three, against Manchester United in the 1979 final, with Brady starting the move that ended in Alan Sunderland's famous last-minute winner.

Brady was at the peak of his Arsenal form by now, as shown by one of his best goals for Arsenal; having dispossessed Peter Taylor he flighted a looped curled shot from the edge of the penalty area into the top corner, in a 5–0 win against Tottenham Hotspur on 23 December 1978. During this time he was voted the club's player of the year three times, and chosen as the PFA Player of the Year in 1979. Being from the Republic of Ireland, he was the first player from beyond Britain's borders to win that award.

He was the most talented player in what was then a promising young Arsenal side, which was looking to consistently challenge for honours like the Division One title. Despite this, by the 1979–80 season rumour was rife that Brady would be leaving the club in search of a fresh challenge.

That season, Arsenal reached the Cup Winners' Cup final (only to lose to Valencia on penalties), having beaten Juventus 2–1 over two legs in the semi-finals. Brady's performance in the tie impressed the Italian giants and in the 1980 close season they signed him for just over £500,000. He is remembered as one of Arsenal's all-time greats, playing 307 matches for the Gunners, scoring 59 goals and setting up many more.

Brady spent two seasons with Juventus, picking up two Italian Championship medals, in 1981 and 1982; Brady scored the only goal (a penalty) in the 1–0 win against Catanzaro that won the 1982 title. After the arrival of Michel Platini in summer 1982, Brady moved to Sampdoria, and went on to play for Internazionale (1984–1986) and Ascoli (1986–1987), before returning to London in March 1987, for a transfer fee of £100,000, to play for West Ham United, where he scored 10 goals in 119 games in all competitions. He was a member of the side relegated from the First Division in 1989 and played one season in the Second Division before finally retiring as a player in 1990. His last game coming on 5 May 1990, a 4–0 home win against Wolverhampton Wanderers, a game in which he scored.

International career

Brady made his debut for Ireland on 30 October 1974, in a 3–0 win against the Soviet Union at Dalymount Park in a European Championship qualifier.

Brady has claimed his favourite international goal was that against Brazil in 1987.

He never played in a major tournament, partly due to injury and a suspension accrued before Euro 88.

During qualification for Italia 90 Brady retired from the international game. Once Ireland qualified he declared himself available once again. However Jack Charlton decided that those who had played in the qualifiers deserved to go to Italy.

He won 72 international caps for the Republic of Ireland, 70 in the starting line-up, scoring 9 goals.

International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Result	Report	Competition
1.	24 March 1976	Dalymount Park	Norway	3–0	[1]	Friendly
2.	30 March 1977	Landsdowne Road	France	1–0	[2]	1978 FIFA World Cup qualification
3.	30 May 1982	Arima Stadium	Trinidad and Tobago	1–2	[3]	Friendly
4.	12 October 1983	Dalymount Park	Netherlands	2–3	[4]	UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying
5.	16 November 1983	Dalymount Park	Malta	8–0	[5]	UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying
6.	16 November 1983	Dalymount Park	Malta	8–0	[6]	UEFA Euro 1984 qualifying
7.	26 March 1985	Wembley Stadium	England	1–2	[7]	Friendly
8.	10 September 1986	Heysel Stadium	Belgium	2–2	[8]	UEFA Euro 1988 qualifying
9.	23 May 1987	Landsdowne Road	Brazil	1–0	[9]	Friendly

Managerial career

After retiring from playing in 1990, he managed Celtic between 1991 and 1993, and then Brighton & Hove Albion between 1993 and 1995. Neither spell was particularly successful, and at both clubs Brady's tenure was overshadowed by the respective clubs' financial problems. At Celtic, Brady failed to win a single trophy in his two-year tenure, and included a 5–2 defeat on aggregate by Neuchâtel Xamax in the 1991–92 UEFA Cup, one of the club's worst European defeats in their history.

Brady would have no greater success with Brighton, departing following a disagreement over the way the club was being run; he later led an unsuccessful bid by a consortium to buy the club. He remains involved with the new owners, having appeared at fans forums as a representative as recently as 2005.

He rejoined Arsenal in July 1996, as Head of Youth Development and Academy Director, and has remained there since; although he was linked to the manager's post after the departure of Bruce Rioch, Brady insisted he was not interested in the role; Arsène Wenger eventually took the role. Under Brady, Arsenal's youth sides have won the FA Premier Youth League in 1997–98; the FA Premier Academy League U17 title in 1999-00; the FA Premier Academy League U19 title in 2001–02; the FA Premier Academy League U18 title in 2008–09 and 2009–10; and the FA Youth Cup in 1999-00, 2000–01 and 2008–09.

Brady was one of dozens of former managers linked to the Republic of Ireland manager's job after the sacking of Steve Staunton in 2007. Instead, he became an assistant to new manager Giovanni Trapattoni in 2008, while continuing to work as Director of the Arsenal Youth Academy. He stepped down from the Republic of Ireland post in April 2010 when his contract expired. He has said he would gladly have stayed on with Ireland were it not for his Arsenal commitments.

Media career

He first worked as a pundit for the BBC at the 1990 & 1994 World Cups before transferring over to RTE in 1998. Up until the end of UEFA Euro 2008, Brady appeared as a pundit on RTÉ Sport, along with Bill O'Herlihy, Johnny Giles and Eamon Dunphy. He contributed to RTÉ Sport's coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In September 2010 he returned as a regular pundit to the panel for Ireland's UEFA Euro 2012 qualifiers and was part of the RTE panel for the Euro 2012 finals.

Honours

Club

Arsenal

• South East Counties League (1): 1970–71
• FA Youth Cup (1): 1970–71
• FA Cup (1): 1979

Juventus

• Serie A (2): 1980–81, 1981–82

International

Ireland

• Iceland Triangular Tournament (1): 1986

Individual

• PFA Players' Player of the Year (1): 1978–79
• PFA Team of the Year (3): 1977–78, 1978–79, 1979–80
• Football League 100 Legends: 1998
• English Football Hall of Fame: 2006

Other

While at Arsenal, he was nicknamed "Chippy", not for his ability to chip the ball but for his fondness for fish and chips.

Brady also became involved in an anti-drugs campaign in the early 1990s, called "give drugs the boot", encouraging young boys to play sport as a healthy pastime.

Family

Brady was from a footballing family, with both his great uncle Frank Brady Sr. and older brother Ray Brady having been Irish internationals. His late older brother Frank won the FAI Cup with Shamrock Rovers in 1968 and made 2 appearances in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, while another brother, Pat Brady, played with Queens Park Rangers.

External links

• Fan's tribute to Liam Brady
• Liam Brady profile on Arsenal-land
• Photos and stats at sporting-heroes.net