After a short spell working for the Liverpool City Engineer's Department, he set up a private consultancy and spent some time working in
Bilbao, Spain. He returned to Britain in 1884. Brodie was a keen sportsman and played
rugby and
golf. In 1889 he invented the
goal net for use in
football matches, and he said that this was the invention of which he was the most proud. Brodie returned to
Liverpool in 1898 as the city engineer suggesting several improvements for the town such as the UK's first
ring road, electric trams and the
East Lancashire Road, the UK's first intercity highway. This technique was later used in road building projects in
Manchester, for
Kingsway and
Princess Road. Brodie was at the forefront of
pre-fabricated housing technology, promoting the use of pre-cast
reinforced concrete slabs as a means of building houses quickly and cheaply; he presented an example of this technique to the Cheap Cottages Exhibition at
Letchworth Garden City. The design attracted attention from across the world and he is known to have influenced
Grosvenor Atterbury who used a similar technique to build the houses at
Forest Hills Gardens. ==Personal life==