{"id":88945,"date":"2025-10-18T15:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T15:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/88945\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T15:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T15:31:08","slug":"bradley-plans-to-get-post-marathon-chopper-to-derry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/88945\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley plans to get post-marathon chopper to Derry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a big three weeks coming up for Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley.<\/p>\n

Starting with their European tie at home to Celje on Thursday, the Hoops have six games over 18 days in which they could seal the league title, complete a first double since 1987 and make inroads in the Conference League with the second and third games of their league phase.<\/p>\n

Domestic honours could have been wrapped up on Friday night, but Simon Power\u2019s strike ensured St Patrick\u2019s Athletic took the derby bragging rights<\/a> and meant the champagne stayed on ice for Rovers.<\/p>\n

Yet in the midst of all that, Bradley has another sporting endeavour which puts football into perspective.<\/p>\n

Next Sunday he, along with assistant Glen Cronin, will tackle the Irish Life Dublin marathon before flying by helicopter to Derry for the fixture (3pm kick-off) that will formally seal the league title if they avoid defeat.<\/p>\n

The pair are raising money for Oscar\u2019s Kids – a figure that stands in the region of \u20ac33,000 – the children\u2019s cancer charity close to Bradley\u2019s heart after the journey his son Josh underwent before receiving the all-clear in August.<\/p>\n

Bradley insisted that despite logistical concerns, he will start in the first wave at 8.45am before departing for the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium shortly after crossing the finish line.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve raised a lot of money for an incredible charity,” he told RT\u00c9 Sport. “There is nothing that will stop me running that marathon for them.”<\/p>\n

Asked if he had a time in mind, he said: “I don\u2019t know. Let\u2019s just finish it, enjoy it and get it done.”<\/p>\n

\"Stephen
\nStephen Bradley, right, and his assistant Glenn Cronin will take in this year’s Irish Life Dublin Marathon<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old says that the training is a “different animal” from what he was used to as a professional footballer, but having Cronin as a running partner has been hugely beneficial.<\/p>\n

What do the pair talk about as they pound the pavements?<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a bit of everything to be honest. It\u2019s football, life. We\u2019re together a long time – we\u2019re running for over three hours when we\u2019re training – so we have a chance to talk and let loose. Sometimes it\u2019s quietness, which is nice too.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve done our work, we\u2019ve done our training. We\u2019re ready.”<\/p>\n

Bradley was philosophical on the defeat in Inchicore, admitting that Stephen Kenny\u2019s side were deserved winners on the night.<\/p>\n

Josh Honohan missed out through injury and Pico Lopes, who helped Cape Verde to reach next year’s World Cup finals earlier this week, was also absent as his wife gave birth to their first child hours before kick-off.<\/p>\n

Yet they still created enough chances to take something from the game.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s hard to criticise the players,” he said. “We had chances, on another night we win the game. It wasn\u2019t to be. Pat\u2019s scored a great goal, but we can\u2019t be too disappointed with the performance.<\/p>\n

“I thought the players were excellent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a big three weeks coming up for Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley. Starting with their European tie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-88945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}