Profile

Coming from a family of fiery redheads, Brendan "the dirty blonde" Donnelly learned from a young age to keep his head down and his mouth shut to avoid conflict - a tactic that worked well for him until one family camping trip to France that would change his world forever. He discovered his first true love - not the beautiful brunette from Blackburn with whom he would pursue a holiday romance, but Newcastle United, with the help of two young holidaying Geordie pals. On that trip, he realised that he wasn't going to follow in his father's footsteps and worship the Red Devils but that deep inside him there was a magpie crying to get out, that his blood ran black and white, and that his inner voice was screaming "Why-aye, man!"

With this profound realisation, he decided to move closer to his spiritual home and so he packed up his fishing rod and made his way to Newcastle. A wrong turn on the M1, however, found him headed towards the spires, lakes and intellectual bright lights of Oxford, where he became a mathematical whizzkid. Ever since then, he has spent his days striving to earn enough money for the Megabus back to Newcastle.

When he's not busy training hard for marathons and practising his favourite karaoke classic "Fog on the Tyne", Brendan relishes in being mathematically safe and experiencing mid-table positions in the Preds and for his beloved Magpies.