Interview by Dominic Bliss
Photos by Stuart Tree & Andy Nunn
Ahead of Danny Bracken’s testimonial this Saturday, we spoke to his big brother, James, about their time together at Corinthian-Casuals, growing up using the fireguard as a goal and his pride at seeing Danny honoured for his loyalty to a club they both grew to love…
This weekend, your brother has a testimonial match at Corinthian-Casuals after making over 500 appearances in over a decade with the club. How proud are you of Danny and what he achieved here?
I’m proud of him regardless of the football. I think his football, particularly his time at Casuals, just highlights him as a person. He’s certainly not a money-chaser and he puts other people first. You won’t meet anybody in any aspect of his life that doesn’t say what a lovely lad Danny is – and he really is. He doesn’t have a bad bone in his body.
Ultimately, this is a celebration of one man’s loyalty and one man’s commitment to a club, and anyone who’s been involved in football knows what a commitment it is to be out there every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. For him to play as consistently as he did over that period is a life commitment, it takes over, and I hope he gets a good turnout. I hope that people from other clubs decide to come down and show their support too, because I’m pretty sure that everyone would love to have a Danny show that sort of loyalty to their club. He gave far more than many ever would. That should be rewarded and celebrated.
He stuck it out through some tough times here and enjoyed success too, which is the ultimate reward for loyalty, isn’t it?
You said “stick it out” and, before I went there as manager, I know he had some challenging times, just being fed up of losing. I watched a number of his games back then and I remember one down at Horsham where I think Casuals lost 3-0, but I remember him making something like 10 one-v-one saves. I mean, he is probably as good a one-v-one keeper as I’ve seen, in terms of coming out and smothering chances, getting a hand on something or slowing it down.
For a goalkeeper, that must be a little bit soul-destroying, everyone telling you that you’ve played well but you’ve still lost, you’ve still let in three. It was just total exposure.
He certainly doesn’t lack winning mentality, so it wasn’t a case that he stayed at Casuals because he was comfortable. He is as bad a loser as anyone I know, and when we were getting into the play-offs every year, I know he got a lot more enjoyment out of it. Who doesn’t enjoy winning more than losing?
I’m immensely proud of him, he showed enormous loyalty. It’s a funny one because I know he had loads of approaches before I went there, but obviously after I went there the offers dried up somewhat! I’m not being funny, but they’re thinking, “Is he really going to leave his brother?” It’s probably one of those where you don’t want to be the one who asks the question, because you know what the answer’s going to be! That’s blood, that’s brothers for you. The loyalty goes both ways.
Did you two grow up playing football together?
We did play football and we loved it. I’m seven years older than him so there’s a bit of an age difference, but we played football. He’s a goalkeeper because of me! When you’re 11 and your brother’s four, he ain’t got no choice, has he?
We used to have an old-school metal fireguard, one of those that looked like a dog cage, and I had a little foam football. I remember sticking him in there and we would smash the ball around the little maisonette my parents had then. When we went in the garden, we had an old conifer hedge that would be the goal. If we went over the field, I was not a bad little player coming through and, ultimately, I needed him to be someone I could kick a ball at, tell him to go and get it, and then kick it back to me! There was an age difference but it didn’t matter. Dan was quite impressionable, so I managed to stick him in goal early doors and he went from there.
I say that, but he was actually good on pitch as well. He played on the left wing for his school and I think if he had stuck to that, he would have safely played at Step 4 on the pitch. Safely. He may even have gone higher than that.
Obviously, he went in goal and went to West Ham, and he was a good cricketer too, because he’s got good hand-eye coordination. He could’ve done whatever he chose in sport, but he went in goal, and that was that.
West Ham let him go because he was too small, and you look at him now, he’s six foot three! That’s the nature of academy football, unfortunately, with big clubs trawling players in and trying to find the next ones. Sometimes small margins matter and if one kid’s four inches taller than the other at that moment, they might go with him. Dan was there until he was 15 and he had a growth spurt, big time, between 15 and 18. All of a sudden, he was a totally different shape.
What were the tougher aspects of managing a team that included your brother?
In my last season there, I left him out. We had Manny Agboola come in and my brother had been struggling a bit with fitness. We’d been running with one goalkeeper for a number of years and it’s always hard to keep a second-choice keeper happy. My brother won League Goalkeeper of the Year twice when he was playing Step 4, and he’s obviously now excelled at Step 3, so it was always hard to keep good number-two goalkeepers around because you couldn’t really offer them any real opportunity.
Then, last season, he had his injuries and there were times he was playing with a bit of a groin problem, or bits and pieces, and it was putting an enormous strain on me trying to run a football team right while my goalkeeper wasn’t 100 per cent fit. So we brought Manny in, and what I will say is that leaving your own brother out… that is the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in football. And I will never have to do a harder thing. There will never be a bigger challenge to me than leaving out your own brother. Trust me, it broke his heart and my heart. But, ultimately, it was the right decision. It was incredibly, incredibly tough, especially when you think about the amount of games he’s played for the club and what he’s done for the club. If he hadn’t had the injuries and the fitness issues I wouldn’t have brought anyone else in.
But it’s testament to him, the way he responded to it. I’m a bit sentimental but when I put him back in the side for a cup game – his 500th game – I knew he was going to have a blinder. Somehow you know something’s going to happen on the night… and it did. He saved two penalties and we went through.
The competition with Manny pushed him to a better level, which I felt he had in him, and I needed him to show, and he did that. He responded as I knew he would – as a really good, honest young man who puts the team first and, ultimately, trusts me.
We’ve probably spoken about that too long, but it is certainly one of the memories that has stuck with me over the last year since I’ve stopped, and I think it will always stick with me because of the way I felt. I didn’t sleep that night. I phoned him up the night before the game and, on the Friday night, I didn’t sleep a wink. I was just laying up all night second guessing myself. Have you done your own brother a wrong? Have you made a mistake here? I give a lot of thought to a lot of decisions but that one has been, single-handedly, the biggest one I ever had to make.
Something about Corinthian-Casuals obviously chimed with both of you, given the number of years you both put into it.
Oh, 100 per cent. Dan had the Brazil trip in 2015 and if you can experience anything like that, with any football club, it makes it special.
Also, the fans. Everyone goes on about their fans being great, but the support we received… he was ‘England’s Number One’ before I got there, and he was ‘England’s Number One’ when I left. The support that he’s had from the boys behind the goal and everyone at the club is incredible. Everyone at the club is really friendly, really welcoming. There’s a lovely feel to it, especially when times are good. When you’re winning big games down there, and you’re causing cup upsets, it’s an absolutely fantastic place to play and manage.
When you’ve got nothing, everyone is there because they want to be there. The players on the pitch are also there because they want to be there. I think that’s a massive thing and it’s something that has stayed with me beyond my time there.
We always had good teams and he always knew that we’d be there or thereabouts, and eventually we got promotion. Then, after we went up, we didn’t win every week but we were always competitive, and you always knew that we’d be in games.
Speaking of being competitive, are you going to treat this Saturday’s game as a testimonial or are you going all out to win?
I’ll be honest with you, I ain’t going to be happy if I lose. That’s the truth. I’ve not managed since the last game of last season, so it’s been a while and I don’t know when my next one will be. I certainly don’t want to lose and then maybe not have another game to get over it.
But, at that same time, it’s a celebration of a great young man. Everyone loves loyalty. I’m a West Ham fan and we’ve got Mark Noble, who will always be loved because of the loyalty he showed. He’s just West Ham through and through, and I think it’s the same with Dan and Casuals.
How much are you looking forward to seeing the Casuals fans again…
It’ll be lovely. I’ve not been down this season because I never wanted to detract from what people were currently doing – it was other people’s gig and it was up to them to try and do a good job. I didn’t want to be one of those people floating around in the stand when things weren’t going well. It wouldn’t have been why I was there, but it would probably have been seen that way, unfortunately. That’s the way the football mind works: if you go and watch a game these days, apparently you’re after the job. So I decided to keep my distance.
It’ll be nice to see everybody, to see all those old faces and hopefully see as many people there as possible. Anyone who respects loyalty will respect Dan – not just our fans. If you speak to the people at any of the Isthmian teams that have come across him, they’ll tell you he always has time for people, he’s always had good banter with the fans behind the goal from the opposition. He has always been one of those characters from non-league that you can’t come away from a game without noticing. You will hear people say, “That Danny Bracken lad… ain’t he a good keeper, ain’t he a good laugh.”
There will have been hundreds of people that have come away from games saying that over his time playing, and hopefully some of them will make it down and enjoy seeing him back out there in a Casuals shirt on Saturday.
Danny Bracken’s testimonial game, featuring players from throughout his time with Corinthian-Casuals, kicks off at 2.30pm on Saturday 6 May at the United Business Group Stadium, King George’s Field, Tolworth. It is £5 admission and a cut of the proceeds will go to Danny’s charity of choice: The Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research.
