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Liam Brady
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2006 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of Football's Greatest Heroes, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
Liam Brady secured his place in Highbury folklore when he lifted a stunned, exhausted Arsenal team off the floor and steered them to victory in the 1979 FA Cup final. With a minute to go at Wembley and the Gunners reeling, Brady turned the game on its head.
Socks rolled down around his ankles, an exhausted Brady embarked on a 40-yard run with the ball that would eventually draw four opponents to him, freeing up vital space for his team-mates to exploit. ‘When we scored the winner,' he recalled later, referring to Alan Sunderland's volleyed winner, ‘it was the most emotional moment of my career. God knows, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry'.
His FA Cup medal would prove to be his only club honour as an Arsenal player, though, on an individual note, he was voted Player of the Year by his fellow professionals in 1979. In total, Brady appeared in four Cup finals for the Gunners, before leaving to play in Italy, where he achieved championship success with Juventus.
During his seven years as a first-team player between 1973 and 1980, Brady was idolised by Gunners fans to an extent unprecedented in the post-war era. Nick Hornby wrote, in 1992, that the Irishman was ‘revered by every single Arsenal supporter'.
In 2004, more than two decades after his last appearance in Arsenal colours, Brady was described, rather poetically, in an official history as ‘a midfield general of sublime vision and skill whose left foot was an instrument of almost celestial precision and who could drift past opponents as thought they were not there'.
His background as a product of the youth system only added to his popularity at Highbury. ‘Chippy' was one of them: a Gooner. ‘In football parlance, if you cut him he would bleed Arsenal,' Hornby said.
He joined the Gunners at the age of 15, in 1971. Two years later, he made his debut for a side then in decline. By the end of the decade, under manager Terry Neill, Brady had established himself as the team's creative fulcrum. As Brady improved, so did Arsenal - proof of which came when they reached three successive FA Cup finals between 1978 and 1980, victory over Manchester United being sandwiched between defeats against Ipswich Town and West Ham United.
On a sweltering day at Wembley in 1979, Manchester United scored twice in three minutes late in the game to level the score at 2-2. All the momentum seemed to be with them. Recalling the moment, Brady would write: ‘I knew that we had to keep them away from our goal. So I just did what I always did when I had the ball, I ran at them.'
Victory was all the more important to him because Brady had, by now, decided to leave the club – once his contract expired in 1980. In response, Arsenal offered to make him the best-paid player in England, but Brady was determined to pursue his career overseas.
So, at the age of 24, Brady walked away from Highbury after scoring 59 goals in 306 domestic league and cup and European appearances. Terry Neill described the Irishman's departure as ‘a tragedy of monumental proportions for the club'.
After leaving Juventus, Brady enjoyed spells at Sampdoria, Internazionale and Ascoli, before returning to Britain to play out his career at West Ham.