Liam Brady: Bill O’Herlihy was team manager

If the RTÉ studio was the dressing room, Bill O’Herlihy was the team manager, Liam Brady reflected last night.

“We weren’t close in social terms, we were professional colleagues. Now I truly regret not having that game of golf we talked about or that I didn’t insist he got the opportunity to come to Arsenal for a Premier League game. I had told him he would be in the director’s box with me,” the Gunners legend revealed.

“He liked Arsenal, liked us as a football club. Not that he overtly was a fan of the team but I know he admired how the club conducts its business. That professionalism was something Bill could readily relate to.”

Brady found himself shaken and stupefied by the news of Billo’s passing.

“A great person to work with. He was always up for his work. When the red camera light went on, he was always ready. He had a nose for the right topics of conversation. Eamon (Dunphy) put that down to his grounding in news and current affairs with this newspaper and later with RTÉ. He brought that nous to every studio discussion, constantly probing for different angles.

“He was very good at acting like he didn’t know what he was talking about. He rarely expressed an opinion during a match, because that wasn’t his function. Nor did he question what we were talking about in terms of analysis. He was too focused on being the unseen hand, shaping the discussion, then sitting back and letting the conversation go where it needed to.

“And he was virtually unflappable. Whether we could get a clip onto the screen, or lost a picture or commentary from a game, his delivery was always seamless. I can’t remember a situation he didn’t handle well. The studio chemistry worked because he was the consummate pro. Why didn’t we have that game of golf?”