For devotees of elegance, perception and skill, it was as if someone had pointed out a rare flower to Jack Charlton, and he had crushed it underfoot. If Charlton hadn't already been embraced both by the national team's supporters who had travelled wide-eyed to the previous year's European Championship finals, and by a largely benign media, his decision would have been tantamount to heresy.

Because this wasn't just another player walking the lonely walk. This was Liam Brady. A legend at Arsenal when he was in his early 20s, a playmaker who masterminded two Serie A titles when Juventus were the best team in the best league in the world, a beam of light when Ireland were all too often in the dark, a cerebral midfielder who once scored the winning goal against Brazil. When Brady put his left foot on the ball and glanced up, it was as if time stood still.

There were harsh words in the dressing room at half-time.

He told Charlton in no uncertain terms what he thought of him, and Frank Stapleton had to intervene in an effort to defuse the situation, "Hold on, hold on, there's a game to be played here."

Stapleton was right, and the game continued as it inevitably does, but for Brady it was over, and he immediately announced his international retirement. His nemesis would inherit Ireland's new football kingdom.

Tomorrow, Brady, his family and some close friends, will gather at an Italian restaurant near his home in Brighton to mark his 50th birthday. When you're as steeped in the game as he is, and when you run Arsenal's youth development programme, there is no escape from talk of football. But take it that the conversation will also range over his passions for national hunt racing . . . he's one of the owners of Cerium who goes in next month's Arkle Chase at Cheltenham . . . and for golf. Take it as well that Jack Charlton won't be on the agenda.

"No, he won't. Look, if Jack wanted me out of the way, and if he stage-managed the situation by subbing me against West Germany, then it was diabolical. But that's in the past, and anyway, it's important to remember that I played some of my best football for Ireland under Jack. I admired him as a manager, he was decisive, he had a plan, he could handle pressure.

"Admittedly, there was no chemistry between us, and his style of football was completely alien to the way I believe the game should be played. But, no, I don't blame Jack for what he did, because that's just the way he is. I'm not sure he showed anyone any respect, but he got results that hadn't been achieved before. The players were desperate to get to major finals, and he led them."

Looking at Brady now, less intense than the slight, but commanding, figure who could fillet a defence with one stroke of that left foot, and much less intense than the gaunt manager who prowled the touchline at Celtic Park, it's hard to figure him for a rebel. Yet he reminds you that he walked out on Arsenal after just six months.

He had crossed a line with one of the coaches who then kept him back a couple of evenings a week from six to eight o'clock to clean the dressing rooms. So he came home that Christmas in 1971 and vowed not to return. "It wasn't as if I'd been sent back to Dublin because they had doubts over my ability. I'd kind of rebelled against the regime, rebelled against the excessive discipline by this one guy."

Like David O'Leary and Stapleton, and the other Arsenal kids with their dreams, he was homesick, but unlike the other kids, his football education was already more sophisticated.

His great uncle Frank had played for Ireland in the 1920s, his older brothers Pat and Ray were with Millwall and QPR respectively, while another brother Frank played for Shamrock Rovers.

The day before Ray lined out for Ireland against Austria in a European Nations Cup game, he brought Charlie Hurley up to the family home on Glenshesk Road in Whitehall. "It caused a major buzz around the place, all the kids were there knocking on the door. I was about seven or eight, I was awestruck, and that's when I really remember becoming obsessed with the whole thing.

Later, I used to play every Saturday for St Kevin's Boys and then go to watch League of Ireland on a Sunday.

"I was good, and I knew I was good, well, because you just know you are. I was confident, I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. I'd be in the first team at Arsenal when I was 18, and then I'd play for Ireland. Very confident, no doubts about myself."

Later, Ray Treacy would remember looking at the teenager on the morning of his international debut against the Soviet Union in 1974 and thinking that he had lost his bottle. "I was nervous alright, but I think they were good nerves, " Brady says. "I could sense a great belief in John Giles among the players. He'd changed the mindset when he got the manager's job, the inferiority complex had gone. We crucified them. We were aggressive . . . guys like Don Givens and Treacy, not me obviously . . . and we played some great football as well.

They kicked off, the ball came back to John and he passed it straight to me as if to say, 'Go on then, don't be frightened.'

And I wasn't."

That combination of confidence and a rebellious streak served him well as he became the leader of Arsenal's young orchestra. It helped him to acclimatise and then flourish in the demanding arena of the Italian game, and it surfaced again when Charlton grabbed the international team by the scruff of the neck.

During the qualifying campaign for the 1988 European finals, Charlton was trying to impose himself, to build a new side in his image, and Brady quickly sensed he was being picked reluctantly. "He couldn't leave me out because I was playing well, but I probably didn't do myself any favours. I accepted that I had to go along with what he wanted for the most part, yet I didn't toe the line completely. I might pass the ball near the edge of the box and he'd be shouting 'Get the ball up the effing pitch', and I'd pretend I didn't hear. It was that bit of rebellion that wouldn't allow me do it totally his way."

He elbowed a Bulgarian player in the 2-0 win at Lansdowne Road and was sent off.

That appeared to be that.

Brady was 32, Bulgaria would do what they had to do to reach the finals in their last game against Scotland, and Ireland would be out.

On the day of the BulgariaScotland match he was playing golf with Pat Jennings at South Herts outside London, and when they got back to the clubhouse, the barman had this strange look on his face. "You won't believe it, Scotland won 1-0. You're going to the European Championships."

Before anything else, he had to get on to the FAI about the four-match ban he had been handed by Uefa following the sending-off. He was told not to worry, an appeal was being sorted out, but he still contacted Giampiero Boniperti, the Juventus chairman, as well as the shipping magnate and owner of Sampdoria, Paolo Mantovani, to see if they could pull a few strings within Uefa.

Later, he travelled to Zurich for the appeal hearing with an FAI delegation which included the association's president at the time, Pat O'Brien, as well as Des Casey. "Pat was a lovely man, but he had a really strong Cork accent and in all honesty, I'd trouble understanding him, " Brady remembers. "Anyway, we go into this room with several Uefa officials from different countries and there were booths at the back of the room for the translators. Pat opens up our appeal and I wasn't too sure what he was saying, and I could see the translators shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders.

"I'm worried obviously, but Des tells me everything's going to be fine. So then, Des is on his feet and he's really doing his best for me. 'Liam Brady has been a great player for Ireland, he's waited so long to get to this stage. What you have to appreciate is that Liam Brady is to Ireland what Michel Platini is to France, and what Diego Maradona is to Brazil.'

Now I'm laughing to myself and thinking, 'I've got no chance here'."

As it happened, the FAI got the best result in the circumstances and Brady's suspension was reduced to two games, but then a cruciate ligament injury cost him the chance of playing in a firstever finals tournament after 14 years. He limped through Germany, revelling in the team's performances, and probably had the most difficult job of all when Charlton asked him to get the players to bed after the 1-0 win over England in Stuttgart.

His work as a TV commentator at Italia '90 was a prelude to a sideline which has seen him become one of RTE's most prized analysts alongside Eamon Dunphy and Giles.

"Eamon acts in haste and never repents at leisure, " he says, "but it's rarely boring when he's around."

After the 0-0 draw against Egypt in Palermo when Ireland performed poorly and when no one appeared to have a clue how to break down the Egyptian defence, Charlton approached Brady in the team hotel where he was a having a beer with some of the players.

"Could've done with you tonight, " he said. A few minutes later, he was back at the table. "Only when you were at your best, mind." That was Charlton. He would say something generous, and then once he realised it might have seemed like a sign of weakness, he had to qualify it.

For a year I had lived with the possibility of Liam Brady's transfer to another club in the same way that, in the late '50s and early '60s, American teenagers had lived with the possibility of the impending Apocalypse. I knew it would happen, yet, even so, I allowed myself to hope f I had never felt so intensely about an Arsenal player: for five years he was the focus of the team.

Liam Brady was one of the best two or three passers of the last 20 years, and this in itself was why he was revered by every single Arsenal fan.

Nick Hornby, 'Fever Pitch' Brady, Stapleton, O'Leary and Graham Rix were the backbone of the Arsenal side of the late 1970s. Three FA Cup finals in a row, and one, sandwiched in the middle, a neverto-be-forgotten 3-2 win over Manchester United. A Cup Winners' Cup final as well, but no European silverware as Valencia came through after a penalty shoot-out.

Rix's failure in the lottery of sudden-death is probably remembered more vividly, but Brady's earlier miss haunted him for a while. "I'd wake up in a cold sweat thinking about why I didn't put it in the other corner. People talk to me now about a certain game I played in, or a certain goal I scored, and I've no memory of it. But I've never forgotten that penalty."

FACTFILE Born 13 February, 1956 Clubs Arsenal (1973. . .1980), Juventus (1980. . .1982), Sampdoria (1982. . .1984), Internazionale (1984. . .1986), Ascoli (1986. . .1987), West Ham (1987. . .1990) International Republic of Ireland, 72 caps, 9 goals;

Debut, 1974 v USSR; Final international, 1989 v West Germany Manager Celtic (1991 - 1993), Brighton & Hove Albion (1993 - 1995) Head of Youth Development and Academy Director at Arsenal (1996 - present) Honours 1979 FA Cup; 1979 PFA Player of the Year; 1981 and 1982 Italian Scudetto; FA Cup runner-up, 1978 and 1980; Cup Winners' Cup runner-up, 1980

JOHN GILES ON A GREEN GIANT

HOW quickly time goes. My abiding memory of Liam is still fresh. It was his "rst international match against the Soviet Union at Dalymount Park. He was only 18 at the time and had extremely limited experience playing for the Arsenal. You hear an awful lot about experience these days, about players being good enough to step up or not. Well, my experience of it is that when a player is of the right stuff he can cope with it easily and Liam proved that instantly.

He took to the international game like a duck to water.

During that match against the Soviet Union he looked as if he'd always been playing at that level. He played with an assurance and con"dence and that's only present with the real natural players. He was what we called a "street player" in Dublin in the old days. He learned his gift on the street and it was exceptional.

I once saw Liam play a match for Arsenal at Leeds. He was only a young fella but there are some things you can see right away with the greats.

They have time and space to use the ball and the more space and time the top-class player has, the more effective he can be. And Liam was effective.

He was up there with the best and I would certainly describe him as a beautiful player. He had this languid style when he didn't have the ball. He had this change of pace and surge so in other words he could go past people.

If you watch the top guys today they very rarely go past players. They don't have that ability but it's invaluable. It opens up everything. And Liam had no problem with the physical nature either because it's all about time and space.

Top-class players are like that.

If you make time and space you have very little contact.

He was also one of the most enjoyable players to play with in my career. You could give him the ball in very tight situations and he had this ability to create things, even then. Obviously with his dribbling and beautiful distribution with his left foot and a good shot, that always made him a danger to anyone he played against. So he had quite a lot of equipment and people knew it.

His best football, I believe, was in Italy. The people there always loved the artistic element in players and Liam would have naturally appealed to them. He was a big loss to Arsenal when he left. How could he not be? Any team would have been delighted to have him. He was very highly rated. He was a very entertaining player too, easy on the eye. He embodied all the things that people go to watch at a football match and he's one of the very few I would pay to watch.

From a young age he was a hero at Highbury. He was wherever he went and that's a real indicator of the talent he possessed.