Brady, Ollie
August 20, 1993
Ollie Brady
A Cavan All-Star in every sense of the word.
The footballers of Cavan can't boast about having many All-Stars in their midst, either past or present. In fact, only one Cavan player has even joined the illustrious All-Star club and he is their star of the 70's, Ollie Brady.
That sole Cavan All-Star was won by Ollie in 1978, in the centre half back position. On that team he joined the likes of John O'Keeffe, Pat Spilane and Mickey Sheehy of Kerry and Robbie Kelleher and Jimmy Keaveney of Dublin in the list of the country's top 15 footballers. Two years earlier he had been chosen as a replacement All-Star to travel on a tour to America with the best players in Ireland. "It was a tremendous trip and one of the high points of my career. You met a lot of people that you would normally be playing against in Ireland over the years". That tour lasted a few weeks and involved numerous matches with local opposition. Ollie's selection for it came midway through his intercounty career which started for Cavan in 1972. At that stage Cavan's star was a lot higher in Ulster football than it is nowadays and when Ollie arrived on the scene, there was the remnants of the great 60's team which took four Ulster titles.
Ollie's debut came in 1972 in a Dr. McKenna Cup match against Antrim and he arrived into a side which still had the likes of Gabriel Kelly, Andy McCabe, Brendan Donohue and others left over from the 60's. Ollie himself was coming onto it after having helped his school, St. Patrick's, to a Hogan Cup that year and combined with the best of talent from the Redhills, Belturbet and Ballyhaise clubs to notch a Minor Championship medal with Annagh in 1970. He and others on the school team were spotted by the county selectors. That year Cavan didn't do so well in the Ulster Championship and it was 1976 before the Redhills man made his first appearance in an Ulster final. That was against Derry who were going for a two in a row of Championship and got it, overcoming the challenge of the Breffni men by three points in extra time of a replay. In 1978 Down beat them by seven points in the final and in 1983 the Cavan men went down to Donegal by three points in the Ulster decider. That was Ollie's last year as an intercounty player, never having won an Ulster Senior medal. "We never made the big breakthrough in Ulster in those years. The Northern teams were getting very strong and were all coming to the fore". It was unfortunate that a player of Ollie Brady's calibre should never win a Minor and Under 21 level for his county before coming to the attention of the Senior selectors and making the step up in class. "It took a year or two to find your feet at Senior level. It's a different ball game when you're going from Minor and Under 21 up to the Senior team".
But find his feet he did, as that All-Star award in 1978 will testify. "That was a great honour for me alright". That was the year that the great Kerry Senior team started their four in a row of All-Ireland titles, thrashing rivals Dublin in the final by a whopping 17 points Ollie, who now owns a Centra Supermarket in Ballyjamesduff, was great admirer of those two teams who lorded over the football scene in the 70's and early 80's winning 14 out of 18 All-Irelands between them in the period 1969 - '86. "The Dublin/ Kerry teams brought football to a whole new level and took gaelic football by the scruff of the neck and brought it to a new height in the 70's. They brought huge interest into football and dominated it for seven or eight years". In those year, the other counties found themselves being left behind by the strength and fitness of the two giants but Ollie, or "Texas", as he is commonly known, believes that their success was also due to the way football was run in the counties. "A lot of it fell back to the County Boards and the team managers. Kevin Heffernan and Mick O'Dwyer dictated their own approach and the players were always looked after properly".
Since then other counties have followed suit and these days players with the top teams in football and hurling can expect holiday, good dinners after matches and other such treatment to be laid on for them. "Texas believes this is a good thing and should be continued if the G.A.A. is to compete with other sports. "I think the G.A.A. is going to have to look at the games in the long term in a semi professional way. I think players should be financially rewarded for their efforts in the Championship". Of course, this is an argument that has raged for some time now, and will be hotly debated for a while to come but Ollie thinks that his preferred option will be the one taken sooner rather than later. "I think that semi-professionalism will have to come in at some stage - certainly in the Championship. There are all sorts allegations these days about players receiving appearance money so the G.A.A. will just have to stop fooling themselves. It's a changed scene now from 30 years ago". Ollie points to the emergence of supporters club around the county today and how much they are changing the scene. He says that the G.A.A. aren't using all their profits like they should. "The money isn't going back into promoting the game or looking after the football players. The G.A.A. are going around building grounds instead of putting it back into the football". Thirty years ago, football and hurling were really the only sports being played by youngster and they didn't have to compete with likes of soccer and rugby as is the case now. The G.A.A. is under pressure to keep the youth playing in large numbers. "Things are changing and they're changing fast. The young people today have so many options.
The moderately talented G.A.A. players probably put in more effort to their game than the soccer or rugby players but they got the least out of it! The other sports have incentives and the G.A.A. must do the same if they are going to secure a future for themselves". In the 70's, when the Redhills man was playing intercounty football, Cavan were a strong force on the Ulster scene. Although they never won an Ulster title in those years they were always there or therebouts and had been one of the top teams in the province in the 60's. These days it's a different story. Cavan haven't won the Ulster Championship since 1969 and 1983 was the last time they even contested the final. This is obviously disappointing for all Cavan people, including Ollie Brady. "The standard is very bad at the moment. Anyone will tell you that. It's terrible to think that for a county which was stepped in tradition and success the football is so poor now. There are no good underage players coming up and I think the talent just isn't there. The statistics indicate Ollie in his comments about the underage scene as Cavan haven't won an Ulster/Minor Championship since 1974 or an Under 21 title since 1988. They have been changing their Senior managers with a high degree of frequency in recent times but success from this policy has yet to materialise. Even Eugene McGee, the man who brought the Sam Maguire to Offaly in 1982, failed to make much of an impact during his time in charge. "There was a lot of hype when he took over but sadly noting came of it. The footballing talent just wasn't there", says Ollie. So the problem would seem to lie deeper than the management and the present men in charge can't be blamed for the teams problems, according to the Ballyjamesduff supermarket boss. "They are doing their best and seem to have tried everything possible, including good youth policies. They have made great efforts but it isn't making a difference". Of course, Ulster is probably the most difficult province to break out of today and Cavan seem to be lagging behind the stronger powers there - according to Ollie Brady they are in the bottom three of the nine counties. "Ulster football has dominated the scene in the last few years, so it's hard to know if we can make the breakthrough".
Ollie's old club, Redhills, are another team who have been struggling of late and are currently playing at Intermediate level. In his time, they were part of the local parish team, Annagh, which won the Senior County Championship 1n 1973. That year they unexpectedly beat Ramor United in the final and the following week, the Redhills Intermediate side defeated Killeshandra in their county decider. "Football was very good then but emigration and unemployment have had terrible effects". While remaining an avid follower of the game, Ollie never got involved in coaching or team management after he quit football in 1989, due to injury incurred in a club match. "I wanted to take a break for a few years. Maybe in the future I might take it up, I don't know".
Taken form Hogan Stand Magazine 20/08/93
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