As Cockram put it, smiling: “Everyone’s waving at us … but maybe they think we’re the first team.”
Directors and protagonists came. By the time they went, they were different. “What I feel is pride and happiness,” Cockram said. “And life is happiness.” To speak to Dosanjh was to hear a man entirely enamoured with what he had found and that was a recurring theme.
“From now on, you have us as Athletic fans,” Bonetti insisted. Brady stood to embrace his audience, then pulled out a piece of paper, words of thanks written and delivered in Basque. There is, he said, nowhere like this. I am, he insisted, “one of you: an Irish lion.” He was off to the shop to buy five little Athletic shirts for his grandchildren.
“I think all the players and filmmakers who have attended the event over the years have been struck by a film festival celebrating the beauty of football,” said Sean Casey, director of “Liam Brady: An Irishman Abroad,” a film that if it can be defined in a single word might be “warmth.”
“You feel at home there; it’s not contrived or forced … it’s a special place. When Galder, the director of the foundation, and his team look after you, you’re made to feel like a genuine guest. And as someone who works in football I can tell you that’s rarely the case,” Casey said.
“If you’re a football fan, you know that Athletic are unique, you know about its Basque policy and a sustained success that is even more incredible in today’s game, where all their opponents have players from every corner of the globe. But it’s not until you spend time in the city that you realise what a football place it is. The pride is so palpable. Attending the film festival just reinforced to me what football means.”
What it means is all this, and all of them.
