Around this time of year, especially with the weather conditions as they have been, and the Christmas holidays just around the corner, we should make some space to catch up on some reading time.
I will save you some shopping time here, as a book that I just finished last weekend and can highly recommend is The Club by Christy O’ Connor who is a GAA sports writer with the Sunday Times.
The book is based on a year in the life of his club - St Joseph’s, Doora-Barefield in Clare.
In 1999 that club won the All-Ireland club championship, and the following season they became the only Munster club to reach successive All-Ireland finals.
Ten years on, and things are not going as smoothly.
The Club is a chronicle of a season told with fearless honesty by O’Connor who has been the St.Joseph’s senior goalkeeper for 20 years.
It is a fly-on-the-wall story of the effort, agony, and struggles that define the journey undertaken every season by every club in the country, with no assurance of anything for your effort, only a kick in the backside if things go badly.
We all know the script; but O’Connor, whose brother, Jamesie won senior All-Irelands with Clare in 1995 and 1997 – lays it bare on the pages. Warts and all.
How many of us have seen this type of stuff in the past few weeks or will in early January?
As clubs approach their AGM, there is something going on beneath the surface. Fellas are approached, cajoled, and shafted. Even in successful clubs that have won county titles there is no guarantee of security of tenure at the top table or in team management. It’s the GAA way, and we have seen it happen in Galway this season already in clubs.
There is also a lot of sadness and honesty in the book too.
St Joseph’s, as a club and as a community, suffered terribly in 2009, the year the book was penned. It lost one of its genuine leaders in Ger Hoey – a young man in his early 40s and his death casts a shadow throughout the pages of The Club, as did a loss within Christy’s own family – a newborn baby girl Róisín, who survived a precious few short hours.
O’Connor is extremely honest in his assessment of what is needed to bring the club back to where it was in 1999 and every club supporter, player, manager or administrator will benefit from reading it.
St. Josephs’ is a dual club and the tension between football and hurling is intriguing. When a full-time coach is being appointed it is interesting to see how things have to be done and whether the coach will focus exclusively on the small ball or will the football side of the house will get a look in.
Successful and positive clubs are built on loyalty, friendship, camaderie, honesty, togetherness, hard work and unity of purpose. All those traits can be seen in O’Connor’s book and some of the pitfalls that are around the place too.
It is a damn fine read and well work getting and half of the royalties from the purchase price are going to the Jack and Jill foundation and Croí.
