Liam Brady

Did You Know?

• Brady's great uncle Frank Brady Sr. and older brother Ray Brady both won senior international caps for Ireland.
• He alleged he was expelled from St. Aidan's C.B.S. for missing a school Gaelic football match to play a schoolboy soccer international; the school denied this.

Club career

Brady began his career at Arsenal, moving to London on schoolboy forms in 1971 at age 15. He turned professional on his 17th birthday in 1973 and debuted on 6 October 1973 against Birmingham City as a substitute for Jeff Blockley, delivering an assured performance. However, his next match, a North London derby against Tottenham Hotspur, was poor, and manager Bertie Mee used him sparingly for the remainder of the 1973–74 season, in which he made 13 appearances (four as substitute).

Early in his Arsenal career, Brady was nicknamed "Chippy" for his fondness for fish and chips, not for chipping the ball. In 1974–75 he became a first-team regular, shining as a rare bright spot in a side near relegation. Under manager Terry Neill and coach Don Howe, Brady found his best form, providing passes for forwards Malcolm Macdonald and Frank Stapleton. Arsenal reached three consecutive FA Cup finals from 1978 to 1980, winning the 1979 final against Manchester United, with Brady starting the move for Alan Sunderland's last-minute winner.

One of his finest goals came on 23 December 1978 in a 5–0 win over Tottenham Hotspur, when he dispossessed Peter Taylor and curled a shot from the edge of the area into the top corner. He was voted Arsenal's player of the year three times and was the PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1979, the first foreign player to win that award. Despite the team's promise, by the 1979–80 season rumors circulated that Brady would leave for a fresh challenge.

International career

Brady’s first cap for Ireland came on October 30, 1974, in a 3-0 European Championship qualifier win over the Soviet Union at Dalymount Park. He later called his goal against Brazil in 1987 his finest for his country. A suspension picked up before Euro 88 kept him out of that tournament. He retired from international football during the qualifying campaign for Italia 90, but after Ireland reached their first World Cup, he offered to return. Manager Jack Charlton, however, ruled that only players who had taken part in the qualifiers would go to Italy. In total, Brady won 72 caps, starting 70 times, and scored nine goals.

Managerial career

After retiring as a player in 1990, Brady managed Celtic from 1991 to 1993 and then Brighton & Hove Albion from 1993 to 1995. Neither spell was successful, and both tenures were overshadowed by the clubs' financial difficulties. At Celtic, he won no trophies and suffered a 5–2 aggregate defeat by Neuchâtel Xamax in the 1991–92 UEFA Cup. At Brighton, he left after a disagreement over the club's management and later led an unsuccessful consortium bid to buy the club.

He rejoined Arsenal in July 1996 as Head of Youth Development and Academy Director. Though linked to the manager's post after Bruce Rioch's departure, Brady stated he was not interested, and Arsène Wenger took the role. Under Brady, Arsenal's youth sides won the 1998 FA Premier Youth League, the FA Premier Academy League U17 title in 2000, the U19 title in 2002, the U18 titles in 2009 and 2010, and the FA Youth Cup in 2000, 2001, and 2009. He stepped down from the Ireland post in April 2010 when his contract expired, stating he would have stayed but for his Arsenal commitments.

Arsenal announced in January 2013 that Brady would leave his youth academy role in May 2014. He has served as an ambassador of The Arsenal Foundation since 2017.

Media career

Brady first worked as a pundit for the BBC at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups, then moved to RTÉ Sport for the 1998 tournament. He became part of a long-running studio team with Johnny Giles, Eamon Dunphy, and presenter Bill O'Herlihy, and was parodied by the Après Match sketches, with Barry Murphy portraying him. He remained an RTÉ television analyst, covering the 2018 World Cup, UEFA Euro 2020, and the 2022 World Cup. In the early 1990s, he was involved in an Irish anti-drugs campaign called "give drugs the boot." A documentary about his life, Liam Brady: The Irishman Abroad, aired on RTÉ One in February 2023. On 19 June 2023, Brady announced he would step down from RTÉ punditry after 25 years; his final match was a 3–0 win against Gibraltar.