Alan Brazil

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Alan Brazil
Personal information
Full name	Alan Bernard Brazil
Date of birth	June 15, 1959 (age 47)
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Playing position	Forward
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1977-1983 1983-1984 1984-1986 1986 1986	Ipswich Town Tottenham Hotspur Manchester United Coventry City Queens Park Rangers	154 0(70) 031 00(9) 031 00(8) 015 00(2) 004 00(0)
National team
1980-1983	Scotland	013 00(1)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Alan Bernard Brazil (born June 15, 1959 in Simshill, Glasgow) is a former Scottish football player. He was a forward.

Alan started his career with Ipswich Town F.C. in 1977. He stayed with Town till 1983, appearing a total of 210 times, and scoring 80 goals. He then moved to Tottenham Hotspur F.C. in March 1983 for the season, making 31 appearances, and scoring 9 times. In June 1984 he joined Manchester United F.C. for a fee of £625,000. He stayed with United for two seasons, making a total of 41 appearances in the league, the League Cup, the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup. He scored 12 goals whilst with them. In 1986, he transferred to Coventry City F.C. for £300,000, for a season, making 15 league appearances and scoring twice, before being given a free transfer to Queens Park Rangers. He made a total of 4 appearances for them, failing to score, before finishing his career at Bury Town.

He also made 13 appearances for the Scottish national team, the most notable of which saw him playing in the World Cup finals in Spain. His career was cut short at the age of 27 due to a serious back injury that could have seen him ending up in a wheelchair if he continued playing football in the top-flight.

These days, Alan Brazil can be heard presenting talkSPORT's weekday 6-10am slot. He started off co-presenting with Station Director, Mike Parry, but currently co-presents with Graham Beecroft. The show has since been such a hit that it has been named the 'Alan Brazil Breakfast Show'. He gets on well with everyone on the show, especially the resident financial expert Henk Potts with whom he shares a love of carousing. One exception is newsreader Ian Abrahams (aka 'The Moose') whom he regularly insults (sometimes quite nastily) due to poorly-researched or inane news items that serve as the basis for lame punchlines. Another recipient of his vitriol is Jon Gaunt, an another presenter on Talksport, known for his brash behaviour towards callers. He is also a big fan of horse racing and, in 2003, formed the Alan Brazil Racing Club.^[1]

Alan’s local course is the Point-to-Point course at Higham, Suffolk. Alan Commutes from Suffolk to London everyday in his Lexus. Although his programme is a sporting one, his views tend to be to the right of centre when he does express them.

Alan is well known for living life to the full—he eats, drinks, socialises and gambles to excess, and shamelessly acquires freebies. It is exactly this enthusiasm for life that has led to him becoming such a popular presenter.

Alan was famously sacked in 2004, after the Breakfast Show was broadcast at the Cheltenham Festival, from Tuesday to Thursday. Alan enjoyed himself too much and missed the Friday show. Alan was reinstated after a huge uproar from talkSPORT listeners. His several week absence was explained as due to him being lost in beer tent. As a caveat to his reinstatement, Brazil must now pay a £5000 fine for every show he misses.

Alan has several catchphrases the most common being "Why" which is often said in quick repetition. On hearing a location Alan will usually say "I've never been" or "beautiful" depending on whether or not he has visited it.

Alan is currently being targeted as the co-commentator for Setanta Sports live FA Premier League coverage from August 2007, although nothing is yet confirmed. This would not affect his talkSPORT role.

He is remembered for his monumental clanger in 2004. Talking to Gary Buschell, who was at a Bob Monkhouse Tribute Dinner, he dropped the funniest clanger of radio history. During his call he said ' So, er, Gary. How is Bob's health these days?'. Confused with the question Gary Bushell replied ' Well Alan, he died. That's what the tribue dinner is for' and then Brazil, clearly embarrassed replies ' Well, I, er, heard two versions'. This apparently caused hundreds of people to call in with complaints and several hundreds of people calling in to say how funny it was, due to the fact that Alan Brazil didn't actually realise what he had said.

[edit] Child Abuse

In the 1960s, Alan was subject to abuse at Celtic's boys' club, by Jim Torbett. He took Torbett to court in 1996, and Torbett was given a two-year sentence.^[2]

[edit] There's an Awful Lot of Bubbly in Brazil

In 2006 he released a book co-written with Mike Parry called "There's an Awful Lot of Bubbly in Brazil"

[edit] References

1. ^ Newmarket horse racing club - Information, news, tips and bets from Alan. Alan Brazil Racing Club. Retrieved on June 4, 2006.
2. ^ Child abusers who shame British football. The Observer. Retrieved on June 4, 2006.

	Scotland squad - 1982 FIFA World Cup
1 Rough | 2 McGrain | 3 Gray | 4 Souness | 5 Hansen | 6 Miller | 7 Strachan | 8 Dalglish | 9 Brazil | 10 Wark | 11 Robertson | 12 Wood | 13 McLeish | 14 Narey | 15 Jordan | 16 Hartford | 17 Evans | 18 Archibald | 19 Sturrock | 20 Provan | 21 Burley | 22 Leighton | Coach: Stein