Brian Barry-Murphy answers Rochdale’s SOS

It was back in 2010 that I sat down with Brian Barry-Murphy for a lengthy conversation about the highs and lows — but, mainly, the highs — of what the then 32-year-old Rochdale midfielder was only too happy to describe as a “journeyman’s” career spent mainly in the English lower leagues.

The man some Corkonians of my acquaintance like to call ‘the son of God’ — in deference to the Da, GAA legend Jimmy — spoke with passion, affection and much self-deprecating humour about the rewards of a professional footballer’s life away from the glamour of the Premier League. But there was also no disguising the seriousness with which he had committed himself to the game, an hour-and-a-half in his engaging company leaving me to reflect, not for the first time, on the wisdom of the saying that ‘happy is the man whose hobby is also his career’.