IN TRYING TO understand where Conor Bradley is coming from, you have to recognise something about the sporting culture of Tyrone.
In Tyrone, as in Kerry, there is no higher standing in society or culture than to be a senior intercounty Gaelic footballer.
In Dublin, football and hurling is an element of the overall culture.
In Kerry and Tyrone, football is the culture; everything else is either an offshoot of that, or squeezes around the margins.
Think about it. Cathal McShane was in the form of his life as an All-Star footballer when Adelaide Crows asked if he fancied a new life in the City of Churches. For any Australian Rules team to have shown so much faith in a player of McShane’s age, 24 at the time, was remarkable.
But Tyrone were not prepared to lose him. Instead, he suddenly acquired a new job working for The Keystone Group. His first day at work would feature a photoshoot with McShane, his new boss Sean Coyle, and Tyrone manager, Mickey Harte.
A generation before McShane, Sean Cavanagh had his own chance to sample that life with Brisbane Lions. All it took was a conversation with Harte and the question: become a legend with Tyrone, or play a sport that means nothing to you?
Have you ever wondered how the larger counties in Ireland, with a number of decent-sized chunky towns, is such fallow ground for producing soccer players?
This is the world where Conor Bradley is coming from.
An overall trawl of names brings up precious few Tyrone soccer players. Stuart Dallas and Aaron Hughes, granted.
But to be crude about it, the only other truly recognisable player from a Catholic or nationalist background is Niall McGinn. Once upon a time he was a prospect for Tyrone and Donaghmore, but Stephen Kenny signed him on a professional contract for Derry City and within six months he was at Celtic.
If the Irish border was a neater thing, with lines drawn more concisely, then Aghyaran would be in Donegal. As it is, it sits very much inside Tyrone.
The locals speak with a drawl to the accent that carries a Donegal influence and the nearest town is Castlederg.
In these parts, soccer is popular. Plenty of people play amateur soccer for clubs in the Fermanagh and Western (Tyrone) League.
There are 14 clubs from Fermanagh and 17 from Tyrone. Most of the clubs are from the towns and surrounding areas of Enniskillen and Omagh.
Bradley’s local rivalries includes Killen Rangers, Dergview and Ardstraw. His own club where he started, St Patrick’s, are in Division Three, sandwiched in the table by such luminaries as Enniskillen Galaxy and Dunbreen Rovers.
There’s no end of soccer. Right up to the time when a choice has to be made.
Tommy Nethery was a legend of Dergview soccer in the ’90s and 2000s and is a sports correspondent for the Ulster Herald newspaper in Omagh. He knows the score better than anyone.
“When it comes to certain times of the year, then the dual players who play GAA will prioritise it in preference to playing soccer. That’s the way it is,” he says.
“The difference with Conor, though, is that he was identified at a very young age.”
Bradley was recommended to both the Liverpool and Manchester United academies in Belfast. At the time, the underage coaching driven by the IFA was exceptional and in Jim Magilton, had a figurehead that resonated.
More to the point, Magilton was a west Belfast Catholic who attended the St Mary’s Christian Brothers Grammar School.
Together with Liverpool and Bradley’s parents, they plotted a path through his adolescence. Perhaps it was the IFA’s caring role that led to Bradley staying with them rather than switching allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, a recurring trait among northern Catholics.
He played Gaelic football with Aghyaran St Davog’s, but he didn’t go for any underage development squads. Still, there was enough in that recent exchange in the Carabao Cup with Chelsea’s Ben Chilwell that shows he retains something of that north Tyrone scrappy attitude.
“I am loathe to say that his first love was possibly soccer anyway, but he was so involved in that set-up that it possibly overtook everything,” says Nethery.
“When Liverpool are interested in you, well, that’s a different ball game.”
This summer marks a decade since Nethery first saw Bradley in the flesh. Even at the age of 10, his name was being said in hushed tones. His own son Ethan was playing as an eight-year-old for Dergview, against Bradley’s St Patrick’s.
“I went down for the second half of that game,” says Nethery.
“My memory tells me at that time that Dergview was 2-1 up at half-time, but I got down in time to see Conor scoring the winner. He did a wee bit of a knee-slide as well, probably a better one that he did when he scored his first one for Liverpool. I think he ended up with a hat-trick.”
Conor Bradley | January 2024 - Premier Leaguepic.twitter.com/s03yiLGpGT
— Fede (@lfc_fede) February 29, 2024
After that, he started following his progress and can recall him playing two years young on a Northern Ireland underage team against Brazil at Stangmore Park, the home of Dungannon Swifts, the local Irish League side.
By then, Bradley was with Dungannon. One of his first coaches with the IFA was Stephen Erskine.
“And he told me that Conor was a coach’s dream,” says Nethery.
“He said his ability to take on information . . . And if he couldn’t do something, he said he would approach you like a kid years older, and he said, ‘If he couldn’t do something, he would have got it out of you, how to do it right.’
“And within two or three weeks, he would have had it perfected at that stage. From that point of view he was different from any other kid.”
He adds: “But what struck a chord was his hard work and dedication, right attitude, character, desire, he had all those. But he was also a natural athlete. A cross country runner, a boy like that, no wonder Klopp loves him. He has that workrate.
“When you marry that with ability and attitude, you have it all.”
Liverpool have it all now.
