‘We are just so proud of him’

CONOR Bradley makes regular trips back home and they think the world of him at his local GAA club, Aghyaran, St Davog’s.

One of his former coaches, Anthony Devine, describes him as an “outstanding player” tailor-made for Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Devine said, “It’s no surprise to me that he was Player of the Year last year at Bolton, and you can see why Klopp’s mad about him. What he does with Liverpool, he used to do with Aghyaran all the time. He brings that manic energy all the time and he makes other players better.

“He was an outstanding player for us and a great lad. One of the things that stands out for me, is that there were never any issues with discipline.

“If he was blown for overcarrying in training he’d put the ball down and get back to his position, and he never mouthed at referees or anything like that.

“From an early age he was a marked man, all the best opposition players were picking him up, teams did what they could to stop him but Conor never worried about things like that, he just got on with it.”

Bradley’s uncles Kevin and Patrick were renowned footballers for Aghyaran in their day while his mother Linda was an excellent cross-country runner. From early on, it was apparent that young Conor was a star in the making.

“I started coaching Conor around 2009 with the u-8s and already everyone was talking about him. He was at the core of most of our underage teams and usually played above his actual age group a lot of the time. He was a great lad to coach, he never knew when he was beaten, and if you’d have asked him to go in goals, he’d have done it, he was just that type of lad.”

Even when Liverpool came knocking, Bradley didn’t take a step back with his underage football with Aghyaran. Indeed, it was positively encouraged by the scouts.

“If my memory serves me correctly, Liverpool came to scout him at a game in Loughmacrory when he was u-14. They were delighted with how it went, they didn’t know much about GAA but it was a great game of football. They’d looked at him playing soccer but they kept on encouraging him to play for us as long as he could. They never said ‘don’t play for Aghyaran’, they wanted to see him develop at other things.”

Just the other week, Bradley made a flying visit back home. He was spotted on the side-lines supporting his boyhood soccer club St Pat’s, Castlederg and whatever the future has in store, it’s safe to say that Bradley won’t forget about where he came from and the people who helped shape him into someone who can hold their own against the very best players in world football.

Devine remarked, “I managed our reserves team last year and we were up in Tattyreagh. We were having a team-talk in the middle of the field, and who lands over into the middle of it, Conor Bradley.

“He knows those boys well, he played alongside a lot of them, and that’s just Conor, no-one has a bad word to say about him and we’re just so proud of him.”