Liam Brady is a true Arsenal legend. He had gone to Italy a few years before I signed for the club in September 1986, but all the fans remembered him as one of their all-time heroes. There were heavy restrictions on signing foreign players in those days, so, even with their massive spending power and fanatical fans, those big Italian clubs had to think long and hard before they signed one.
In 1980, Juventus had the option of bringing in Liam or the South African Jomo Sono, who was playing for Toronto Blizzard in Canada. Tough choice, eh? With all due respect to Mr Sono and the Blizzards – sounds like a skiffle band, doesn’t it? – I think they made the right decision when they opted for Liam!
More to the point, I think Liam made the right choice too. His thinking was that he wanted to challenge himself while he was at his peak. He could never play for another club in England – at that time anyway – so the only way he could better himself was to play for a club abroad. In his view, there was no bigger club in this country than Arsenal, so he had to go overseas. I was only a lad at the time, but I still remember what a shock it was when he left.
Liam, ‘Chippy’ to the fans, was born in Dublin in 1956. He signed schoolboy forms for the Gunners in 1970, turned professional at 17 and Bertie Mee gave him his debut against Birmingham soon after that. Liam is part of a long tradition of Irish guys playing for Arsenal – fitting really, given all the Irish in that part of North London. In recent years we’ve had David O’Leary, Frank Stapleton, Niall Quinn and Pat Rice, to name just a few.
Liam was my dad’s favourite player. He idolised the fella. Brady needn’t have bothered putting a boot on his right foot, but boy oh boy, what a sweet left foot he had. He could open a can of beans with it.
There is a certain quality about gifted left-footed or left-handed sportsmen. When they are among the best at their particular sport, they seem so much more graceful than the other guys around them: footballers, cricketers, tennis players, it applies to them all. Look at David Gower or John McEnroe and you’ll see what I mean: it all seems so elegant and effortless, so natural. The only sport where being a leftie makes someone look cack-handed is golf. Phil Mickelson is the only left-handed golfer I can think of who is half-useful.
People might say that Liam Brady didn’t have pace, but when he had the ball he slowed the game down to his own speed and, like all great players, he looked as though he had that extra second to do something – a gift that ordinary players just don’t have. That’s what great players do: they give themselves that extra second of time. All that tackling and stuff, the hurly-burly – you get your minions to do that and then they just give you the ball.
One of the questions you always get asked about players from another era is: ‘Would they be good enough to be as successful in today’s game as they were in their own time?’ The answer with all the great players is yes, and Liam is a perfect example of this. Among all the other qualities, the skill and finesse that he had was a wonderful ‘engine’ – he could keep going and going while all the tradesmen were flagging. The best example that springs to mind was Arsenal’s famous win over Manchester United in the Cup Final in 1979. It was the ‘middle’ game of three successive finals the Gunners appeared in, and the only one of the trio they won. The previous year, they had somehow managed to lose to the Tractor Boys from Ipswich and the year after they went one better and got turned over by Second Division West Ham.
Liam was on fire that day in 1979. He helped Brian Talbot to open the scoring and then he laid on the second for Frank Stapleton to head home, which meant that at half-time Arsenal were totally in charge. The second half was pretty uneventful and, as the score hadn’t changed with five minutes left, everyone in the Arsenal part of North London was getting ready to celebrate when United’s centre-half Gordon McQueen tried to ruin the party by scoring. That was bad enough, but Sammy McIlroy then immediately tiptoed his way through the Arsenal defence and equalised. Talk about snatching defeat, or a draw, from the jaws of victory. It looked all set for extra-time and who knows what would have happened then. It was a boiling-hot May afternoon, the impetus had swung towards United and the odds were bound to favour them in the extra half-hour. Fortunately, for the Gooners anyway, Chippy had different ideas.
From the restart he got possession and moved down the left side of the pitch. Some players run in such a way you can almost see the ground shaking underneath them as they thunder along. Others manage to make it more silky and smooth. The top ones, the real class acts, you’d think they were in carpet slippers they’re so light as they move over the pitch. That’s the category that Liam belonged in.
He had run his socks off for nearly 90 minutes and, even though it was beach weather that afternoon, he still had the energy and determination to run straight at United. They were all over the shop as he came at them, so he slipped a ball to Graham Rix that just invited him to cross it into the area. That’s exactly what he did. Gary Bailey in the United goal decided to come out and wave to someone in the crowd, Alan Sunderland – he of the famous home perm – slid in at the far post and it was ‘Goodnight Vienna’. It was one of those famous victories that live on in the memory. It turned into a Cup Final that everyone remembers the final five minutes of, even though they can’t recall too much about the preceding 85. Alan Sunderland did well to be in the box to meet the ball but he did even better once the goal went in; he practically burst a blood vessel with his celebrations.
Chippy was at his peak around then. He won the PFA Player of the Year award in 1979, scored with a left-foot classic in a famous 5–0 victory over Spurs at White Hart Lane in the same year, and was outstanding in a two-legged victory over Juventus in the Cup Winners’ Cup, which probably sealed his move.
It’s got to be said that his years at Arsenal didn’t overload his mantelpiece with trophies. His time coincided with that bleak period in the club’s history between the Double-winning team of Bertie Mee and Don Howe and the arrival of George Graham. Strange to think that a player of his talent at a club as big as Arsenal only picked up one medal in seven years. It wasn’t Chippy’s fault – his quality would have earned a place in any Arsenal team of any period. In fact, a poll of the club’s supporters recently voted him the eighth-greatest player in the club’s history. Thierry Henry came out tops, but the relevant point is that Liam was the highest placed of the older players – guys who played for the club before Arsene Wenger arrived. All seven above him either played under Wenger or were brought to the club by him. Chippy even came above Charlie George, which really shows how well thought of he still is.
In his time at Highbury, Liam played 307 games for the club and scored 59 goals. How many more he created no one will ever be able to say, but it was bundles. Yet those statistics don’t even tell half the tale. Most of my memories of the man come from watching him on TV, because as a kid I was playing every Saturday. But even watching him on the box you could tell how he would control a game purely by his skill and class. It certainly wasn’t a case of bullying the opposition; he was only about 5ft 9in and hardly muscle-bound.
He was one of that generation of footballers who played hard and partied hard, but that was because they had earned the right to. He also helped other players progress. Just look at the influence he must have had on Graham Rix who played alongside him in midfield for years and ended up winning 17 caps for England. It can’t have done him any harm playing alongside a master like Liam.
Given that I rarely saw him in the flesh, you can imagine how excited I was to be one of the ball boys for the 1980 Cup Final when Arsenal played West Ham. The Gunners were firm favourites as the Hammers were in the old Second Division, but I should have guessed what was going to happen. Sure enough, Trevor Brooking came up with a headed goal – it was probably the only time he’d headed a ball in his career, let alone into the net – and West Ham ended up winning 1–0. But Brady’s class stood out, especially in the second half, just as it had the year before. This time, though, it didn’t do any good and soon after that he was off to Italy.
He was at his peak during his Arsenal years and it’s unusual for the club to let someone go when they are at their best, but it was different with Liam. Normally fans are disgruntled when one of their favourites moves on, but it wasn’t the case with him. I think in a way the Arsenal fans were pleased that their best player moved on, and were proud he did so well when he became a major success over there. He picked up a couple of championship medals with Juventus and then, after they signed a certain Michel Platini, he moved to Sampdoria, Inter Milan and finally Ascoli.
I’m glad he managed to get those Italian medals, because, as well as trophies being thin on the ground at Highbury while he was there, he never appeared in major finals for the Republic of Ireland, even though he was capped for them 72 times. He missed the European Championship finals in 1988 through suspension and injury, and didn’t make it into the Irish World Cup squads for 1990 and 1994. Jack Charlton was in charge of the Irish team by then and they played route-one, low-risk football, and successfully too. So putting Liam Brady into a Jack Charlton side would have been like hiring Michelangelo to paint the Forth Bridge – there wouldn’t be much point, would there? Still, it’s strange to think he didn’t fit in, because until Roy Keane came along Brady was probably the greatest player the Republic of Ireland had ever produced.
He’s got to be a great player too because he’s the only ‘outsider’ allowed in ‘my song’. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the Arsenal fans still sing a song in my honour. Its title is ‘We All Live in a Perry Groves World’ and it’s sung to the tune of The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’. It’s not the most complicated of lyrics: they simply sing ‘Number one is Perry Groves; number two is Perry Groves; number three is Perry Groves…’ and so on. Well, I did say it wasn’t too complicated! Most versions have me at every position in the side, but there’s another version that includes ‘number seven is Liam Brady…’ If anyone is going to muscle in on my song, I’m glad it’s Liam.
I was privileged to meet him – and I do mean privileged; I’m not using the word to be polite – when he eventually came back from Italy. George Graham had taken over as Arsenal manager and I was his first signing. Soon afterwards, it started to be suggested that Liam wanted to come back to England. Liam asked George if he could come and train with Arsenal. He was the wrong side of 30 by then but George was under massive pressure to bring him back. When George said yes, he could train with us at London Colney, that just fuelled the speculation.
But George had no intention of having him back in the side. He wanted his own players and his two central midfield men would have to be high-energy, high-tempo players who would be busy closing people down, denying the other team space, and Liam did not fit into that kind of role. We all thought he was a great player, including George, but he’d had his glory days at Arsenal and they weren’t going to come back under George.
I took part in a couple of five-a-sides with him during the time he trained with us, and I think he was grateful to be allowed to train with Arsenal again. No one tried to kick him – he wasn’t the sort of player you’d do that to; we all had too much respect for him – and even at the speed we played at he seemed to have so much time.
I’d like to say that I had happy memories of playing against him once he came back to England, but that wasn’t the case. There wasn’t going to be room for him in the Arsenal set-up, so in March 1987 he settled for West Ham and, a month later, football being what it is, I ended up on the opposite side to my old hero when Arsenal took their lives in their hands and headed for Upton Park. I’ve described in my first book the match at Upton Park where a police Alsatian leaped into the crowd to control troublemakers and was hurled back on to the pitch minus an ear – bitten off by a Hammers fan. So there was always a tasty reception guaranteed down Upton Park way and that April night was no exception, especially as Stewart Robson had joined them from Arsenal a few months earlier too, so he had something to prove as well.
We’d won the Littlewoods Cup at Wembley a week earlier by beating the favourites Liverpool, the first trophy Arsenal had lifted since that Brady-inspired Cup Final win against Manchester United eight years before, and we should have been on a roll. Let’s just say, the gentleman from The Times described it the next day as being ‘a surprisingly vibrant end-of-season derby’. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Perhaps a more accurate description was that both sides went at it hammer and tongs. The fans were in the same mood and at one stage fighting in the crowd held the game up for eight minutes after it spilled on to the pitch. Both teams had to be led off before the action could get under way again.
Tony Cottee gave the Hammers an early lead after Billy Bonds, who was past 40 by then, nodded the ball down to him. Martin Hayes equalised with a twice-taken penalty after Tom McAlister had saved his first shot, but Cottee got a second and the Hammers’ third came from, yes, you’ve guessed it, Liam Brady.
He didn’t really help matters if truth be told, because, when he scored his goal, his first for West Ham, he ran across to the area of the crowd where all the fun and games had been to celebrate in front of them. The referee, Dennis Hedges, booked him and said, ‘Going over to that area of the crowd after the trouble that the police had had was absolutely stupid. I had to caution him because his action might have incited the crowd in the circumstances.’
Liam said the ref told him, ‘We don’t do that sort of thing in this country.’ As he put it, ‘I just wanted to celebrate my first goal for West Ham. The fact that it was against Arsenal was not important. I was just delighted to show them that the old left foot was still working.’
I was just delighted to get out of there in one piece.
The start of the following season saw Liam’s ‘homecoming’ when he came back to Highbury with the Hammers. They lost to a goal from Kenny Sansom, of all people, late in the match. Liam admitted to a rare bout of nerves when he said, ‘It’s the first time this has ever happened to me. For some reason I was never able to settle down.’ But you could tell he knew that times had moved on when he added, ‘The Arsenal team I played in would never have played like that, but football has changed. This team hardly ever passed the ball in midfield, except to give it to Steve Williams to play long.’ But he had to admit: ‘They’re getting as many good results as the old Arsenal side.’ A lot better, methinks.
Liam was a West Ham player for the rest of his career and that involved playing in two ultra-competitive FA Cup third-round matches against the Gunners in January 1989. In the first meeting at Upton Park, the Hammers were 2–0 ahead in no time but Paul Merson grabbed a couple, which meant we took them back to our place for a replay four days later. This should have been no problem. Arsenal were top of the league, while West Ham were bottom and 26 points behind us. Sure enough, they nicked it 1–0 with a goal by Leroy Rosenior. Leroy was born in Clapham and played for England schoolboys, but won his one international cap for Sierra Leone. I wished he’d been in Sierra Leone that night when he headed the only goal of the game 13 minutes from time. George Graham was not well pleased.
Still, that defeat in the Cup meant we could concentrate on the league, I suppose, and a month later we beat the Hammers 2–1 at Highbury. I got mentioned, after a fashion, in dispatches in that game, although not quite in the way I would have liked. One newspaper said Mark Ward of West Ham and I battled it out for miss of the match. Brian Glanville of the Sunday Times described it this way: ‘Ward, with only Lukic to beat, incredibly rolled his shot wide, and just before half-time Groves had been as inept after McKnight had thrown himself at a low cross from Dixon and lost it.’ Charming.
At least I had the last laugh, ending up on the winning side and actually scoring the opening goal with a looping header over their keeper Allen McKnight. Their centre-half Gary Strodder fell down the slope on the goal-line at the North Bank end when he tried to jump to clear it. Local knowledge, you see.
While we went on to win the title that year in that famous last game of the season at Liverpool, Chippy and his new mates at West Ham didn’t do as well. In fact, they were relegated. A year later, at 34, he called it a day, his last game being the final day of the season, when the Hammers beat Wolves 4–0. Like all of us, he’d had to decide it was time to bow out.
Before that match, he said, ‘It will be very sad but I know within myself that this is the right time to go. I don’t intend to stop playing altogether but I won’t be playing professionally again – it will only be for fun. The game’s a lot faster, a lot more physical and there’s less of the skill element. Even those people with skill have less time on the ball. Those who influence the game want to make it more exciting by making it more direct, but is it really what fans want?’
Liam is a very thoughtful guy, just the sort of guy who should be in charge of the football academy for youngsters at Arsenal. His role as I write this is the club’s Head of Youth Development, and he’s perfectly suited for it. He has seen it all and done it all. He came over from Ireland as a young lad, so he has seen all the pitfalls that a young player can be caught by. He would immediately let people know what a privilege it is to play for a club as big as Arsenal without ever going down the road of saying what a great player he was when he was there. That’s not his style anyway.
When the Irish made Giovanni Trapattoni their manager in 2008, one of the first things he did was appoint Liam as one of his assistants. Chippy, who played for him at Juventus, is a fluent Italian speaker. He never got to the World Cup finals as a player, which was a travesty, but you never know how it might end off the field.