A Cavan Senior Star in the late sixties - Lacken Lad - Oliver Brady Played Senior club football up until 42 years of age. What's another year? Years after catapulting Johnny Logan rocketing towards the stars, the Eurovision hit still very much rings true in the border county for hardened football followers. Made to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune every year now since 1987 when the once proud county last won a Senior provincial Championship match, seasoned and loyal followers of gaelic football in Cavan have been sadly all too used to whistling the Shay Healy penned winning song. The eternal optimist will always survive in Cavan. A whole generation of them have been born with only dreams to keep their football ardour fuelled and they're still full-square behind the county's effort to reclaim past glories. Numbered amongst the past glories is the county's Ulster Senior Championship title triumph in 1969, a triumph which amazingly was Cavan's last such victory. One of the stars of that Cavan team was Oliver Brady from the Lacken club. Born and reared in the townland of Lacken, Oliver is one of a string of well known Bradys to hail from there who have made their mark on the playing fields of Cavan and beyond over the last score years and more. Noel Brady, Paraic Brady (captain of the Cavan Masters All-Ireland winning team of 1993) and Oliver's older brother Aidan (who played with the Cavan Senior county team before Oliver's graduation to the self-same elite grouping) all distinguished themselves in the Royal Blue jersey of their native county. As a young fella, Oliver Brady served the best of football apprenticeships with both club and college. Earning a scholarship to the famed Saint Patrick's College, Cavan the young Brady experience the sort of high standard of football that he was later to become to expect at intercounty Senior level. In 1964 Oliver figured on the Saint Pat's McRory Cup team which lost out in the final to an Abbey CBS, Newry side which was powered by such would-be notables as Val Kane and John Murphy. Interestingly, Oliver played under the stewardship of Father Benny Maguire while at Saint Pat's. Father Benny was later to go on to manage the Cavan Senior County team during the 'seventies. Also of interest too was the fact that although the Lacken youngster played in the half back line of that 1964 Saint Pat's side, as he was later to do with Cavan Seniors in the county's National League campaigns of 1968 and '69. A pacy, tigerish defender who could never be accused of dragging his heels when the heat was turned up, Oliver Brady boasts as good a pedigree in G.A.A. terms as one would wish to put on a body's curriculum vitae. His uncle Thomas Francis "Red" Corr (on his mother, Lizzy's side) was an All-Ireland Junior medallist with Cavan in 1927, while his uncle, Tom Brady (a brother of Eddie, his father), boasted a plethora of county Senior Championship medals with the famed Cornafean club. A keen fan of the nags, Oliver Brady's football pedigree could be said to be of "black type". A graduate of Lacken National School but the first of the Brady clan to enter the hallowed inner confines of Cavan's Diocesan College, surprisingly he didn't play football with the college team until fifth year, primarily because he went home each evening unlike his peers who were boarders at the time and practically living for football after school hours. On the club front, Oliver hit good times as an underage player and had a whale of a time as a Minor, winning a County Championship medal as a fourteen year old with Lacken in 1960. A stocky, burly youngster and with bags of skill, Oliver demonstrated his potential by playing with Lacken Juniors at the age of fourteen also. At five feet nine inches and fourteen stone plus, Oliver was the proverbial "fit as fiddle" teenager and with the likes of Tom McKiernan, Andy McCabe, brother Aidan and T.P. Reilly later helped the Lacken / Crosserlough Minor amalgamation to another two under eighteen Championship titles. On the county front, it wasn't just as successful though and an Ulster Minor League final placing (and defeat) against Down was as far as Brady and his contemporaries got. As a tearaway player in his teenage years, Oliver was more than content to ply his wares with what was then little, unfashionable Lacken. Surrounded by parish neighbours Ballinagh, Cornafean and Crosserlough, playing resources weren't too thick on the ground in Lacken at the time and regrouped in '55, the club was at pains to build on what its predecessor Wateraughey had developed in the area. Reflecting back on days of yore when the aforementioned Wateraughey inspired him, Oliver remembers the style of football back then as being tougher, rougher even and altogether a manly affair. "I started off with Lacken as a forward and I remember playing on Phil Brady of Cormore, Cavan's current Central Council Delegate. We won that one but the next day we played Gowna and the match wasn't finished because it got out of hand!". As a youngster, Oliver had the pace and courage to survive the hardiest tests when he was serving his apprenticeship around the less than glamorous club grounds in his active county. "Unfortunately I think cowardice is more common now even though football is nowhere near as tough as it was when I started playing the game. There were no cowards playing football then because if there was, they wouldn't be picked on a club team, never mind a county side", the Sales Director with Architectural Aluminium and partner of M.D. Joe Kenny explained. For someone who played Senior club football up until the age of forty-two, the husband of Adrienne and father of Kieran and Gavin hasn't the slightest interest now, interestingly, in run-of-the-mill club football or even intercounty football at its most banal. He just couldn't be bothered to watch the modern stuff save a Derry-Down clash a la Celtic Park '94 or a thrashing Cavan Monaghan local Provincial Championship derby match. He doesn't pull any punches either. "Watching Cavan over the last year has convinced me that the team can't put three passes together. You have to be able to pass the ball to your team mates own advantage but there isn't a back who can do this simple thing or even tackle without fouling. There aren't enough experienced man-to-man markers around and more's the pity because good defensive play is as valuable as having players who can put the ball over the bar at the other end", the outspoken former draughtsman added. In spite of his early experience as a defender at college and at county level, Oliver Brady will, for many, be remembered first and foremost by his legions of admirers as a top notch opportunist ace attacker whose ability to poach goals from limited opportunities tore the heart out of many a shell-shocked rearguard. Reflecting back on a club career with Lacken, the erstwhile midfielder reckons that the Sky Blues team of 1970 perhaps represented Lacken's best ever squad, the self-same squad which went all the way to the penultimate round of the Senior Championship then, only to lose out to the Saint Joseph's amalgamations side. As for the best club side that Oliver has seen in his time with club and county, the man who appeared for Cavan in both games against Offaly in the 1969 All-Ireland semi final (original meeting and the subsequent replay which Cavan lost) reckons that the Cavan Gaels team of the late sixties which included such household names as Jim McDonnell, Gabriel Kelly and Phil 'Lightening' Murray was the best ever. A debutant with the Breffini Blues in '68, and admirer of Mick Higgins ("the only decent team manager Cavan have had in the last twenty-five years"). Oliver Brady had the confidence, the self belief and ability to mix it with the best, on the domestic and national front. More's the pity then that the Cavan team management saw fit to dispose of his services before the seventies saw the light of day. Unashamedly pessimistic for the outlook as regards the future prosperity of Cavan Football Inc. the one-time terrier with the heart of a lion and the guile of a fox wishes the camp at home all the best and truly believes that a bit of success could lead to a much bigger slice of self-belief, ambition and know-how heading Cavan-way. He'll keep his fingers crossed and professes the view that he'll keep the odd eye on things back home when family and business commitments allow. What else could the folk around Lacken and its neighbouring lands ask for? Written by the Hogan Stand Magazine 30th Dec 1994 Tweet

Most Read Stories