Brendan Bradley
THE KING OF LEAGUE OF IRELAND

Brendan Bradley is probably one of the most famous players of the seventies era in League of Ireland soccer. Bradley had three extremely successful spells with Harps and although a Derry native, is Finn Harps through and through and can still be seen around Finn Park on a match night.

During Patsy McGowan's first appointment as manager to Harps in their LOI debut season of 1969/70, one of the more significant decisions of his career saw Patsy sign Brendan Bradley to Finn Harps from Derry City. Brendan had the reputation of being a lazy player but the persistence of Patsy McGowan was to convince Brendan that he had a future on the League of Ireland scene. As Brendan went on to score 247 league goals, taking into account the 12 he scored in the English League, Patsy was proven a little more than prophetic.

Born in Derry on the 7th June 1949, Brendan Bradley displayed exceptional talent as a youth and he was playing in the Derry and Distrcit league at the tender age of 15. A year later he signed for Derry City and for the next three seasons he was a regular in the clubs reserve team. However he made only a handful of first team appearances, unable to displace regular striker Danny Hale.

Even at a distance Patsy McGowan was impressed enough to offer the princley sum of £100 to secure the talents of the nineteen year old in 1969.

A goal from Bradley in 1972 helped Harps win their first major honour, the Dublin City Cup. In July of that season, Lincoln City boss David Herd paid a bargain basement fee of £6,000 to take him to England. The impact was immediate, scoring 12 goals in his 19 games, but then things began to change. The team had a bad run of results, the goals stopped coming, there was a change of manager with Herd being replaced by Graham Taylor, Brendan hankered for a return home.

McGowan and Harps reduced the fee by £2,000 that enabled Brendan to take up where he left off, goal credits that made him a 'King' amongst his peers. Bradley was prominent as Finn Harps won the FAI Cup in 1974, scoring twice in the dying embers of a game that Harps won 3-1 against St Patrick's Athletic in Dalymount Park. In the Cup Winners Cup of the following season Brendan scored in the tie with Turkish side Bursapor, but Harps fell on the aggregate score over both legs of 2-4. In the seasons 1974/75 and 1975/76 Brendan Bradley topped the national goal scoring list on both occasions, the fourth time in his career, a feat not equalled by any player before or since. It seems quite amazing that Brendan was not given any representative honours outside of three Inter-League games in the early seventies.

In 1978, he moved to Athlone, unsuccessful as it turned out, before linking once more with Patsy McGowan, this time at the Sligo Showgrounds, a tenure that was rewarded by 44 league goals and a FAI Cup runners-up medal from the 1981 Final with Dundalk. He returned to Harps to commence season 1982/83, staying a further four seasons, before re-joining his home town club in 1986. Brendan helped Derry capture the Shield but in the autumn of a sparkling career he was hurt by the abuse and criticism that emanated from some sections of the Brandywell terraces.

He still holds the record for the most goals scored in the League of Ireland, an incredible 235 league goals. An amazing 181 of them coming in the blue and white of the Harps including the record number of individual goals in one season at 29.

He still resides in the city of his birth, taking time out to visit Finn Park to regularly watch his beloved Finn Harps. The King might have abdicated his throne, but the legacy of his reign, a quite staggering total of 247 (235 LOI) league goals, is unlikely to be surpassed let alone equalled.