Liam Brady: The Irishman Abroad, RTE 1, Monday
FOR a country obsessed with football, our record in producing great players is surprisingly poor.
We can probably claim George Best, but outside of the Belfast boy there’s Roy Keane, Paul McGrath and, of course, Liam Brady.
Born 10 years after Best and 15 before Keane, Brady had a remarkable career in England and in Italy.
This touching documentary pays tribute to the Dubliner who is rightly remembered with affection in north London and across Italian football.
It started for Brady at St Kevin’s Boys in north Dublin where an Arsenal scout spotted him and persuaded his parents to let the 15-year-old take a job as an apprentice with the great London club.
Football was a little different back then in terms of money and Brady’s first contract was for £6 a week and included cleaning the boots of the first team players.
But he thrived and within two years he had turned professional, broken into the first team, and was earning £75 a week.
Arsenal was a particularly Irish club at the time, with fellow internationals Frank Stapleton, Dave O’Leary, Pat Jennings and John Devine among the prominent players.
Nonetheless, Brady had a hankering for some adventure and took up an offer to join Juventus in 1980, after winning the PFA players’ player of the year award.
Arsenal had beaten the Turin side over two legs in the Cup Winners’ Cup and Brady impressed so much that he became the first foreigner to join Juventus in decades.
He explains that he got his chance because Kevin Keegan turned it down. Seems that his wife didn’t fancy a couple of years in Italy which at the time had a reputation for mafia-directed murder.
Brady’s new wife Sarah had no such concerns and was ready for a bit of adventure.
He was the only non-Italian in a team of stars. Six of his teammates won the World Cup with Italy in 1982.
The cameras follow Brady, who still speaks Italian surprisingly well, as he visits his old clubs and is warmly welcomed after being introduced to the fans.
Juventus was a struggle at first but he found his feet and was a regular in the team when they won the league.
Mid-way through his second season and Brady was devastated to be told that he’d be leaving at the end of the year. Juve had signed Michel Platini and Karl-Heiz Rummenigge and Brady was surplus to requirements.
But he took it like a professional. His only request to his manager Giovanni Trapattoni (whom Brady would later work alongside as part of the Republic management) was that he no longer take penalties.
That was until the last game of the season when Juve was awarded a penalty with 15 minutes to go. There was no score and they needed to win, to win the league. The regular penalty taker had been substituted and Trapattoni asked Brady who agreed and slotted it home.
He is remembered with great affected for this and during the documentary presents the ball used, which he had kept as his own memento, to the club museum.
After leaving Juve he declined numerous offers to return to England and spent a couple of seasons at Sampdoria before moving to Inter Milan and finishing his career back in London with West Ham
Among the treats in The Irishman Abroad is a reunion with his great Juventus pal Marco Tardelli, he of the most famous goal celebration in history and the third member of the Republic’s management in the noughties.
The Irishman Abroad is available on the RTÉ Player.
