The hurlers of St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield began the 2009 season shadowed by past glories and rocked by a series of tragedies. The Club
winner of the 2010 William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year
is the story of that season and of that club, a book that gets to the heart of the GAA like no other.
‘To understand Ireland, you have to understand the GAA. To understand
the GAA, you have to read this book. A masterpiece’ Tom Humphries
‘An extraordinary saga
unflinching in its honesty. This book is to hurling what Eamon Dunphy’s seminal Only a Game? was to soccer writing’ Richard Fitzpatrick, Irish Examiner
‘Here’s a safe prediction- The Club will still be as fresh and relevant in 10, 20, even 50 years’ time as it is today’ Enda McEvoy, Sunday Tribune
‘This is a book to grace any bookshelf, honest and dignified to the last’ Keith Duggan, Irish Times
‘This is one of the best sports that has been written in Ireland. You’ll cry a lot, if you have a soul. And if you love sport, you’ll love this book.’ Ger Gilroy
‘O'Connor exposes the desperate, hurried exchanges in a championship dressing-room at half-time as no one has ever really done before …… O'Connor’s achievement here is to give particular material universal significance’ Michael Moynihan, Irish Examiner
‘It is so open and searingly honest that, at times, the reader feels like a voyeur
… That lends the story its edge and its raw, feral power’ John O'Brien, Sunday Independent
‘Deserves its place among the most courageous Irish sports books ever conceived, and one of the finest ever written’ Michael Foley, Sunday Times
‘It is, simply, a flawless masterpiece’ Gaelic Life
‘A searingly honest book that opens the door into the GAA in a way that has not been done before’ Liam Kelly, Irish Independent
‘The most distinctive GAA book of the year
… and probably the best … The appeal of
the book is that everyone in the GAA will be able to see their own club
in it’ Kieran Shannon, Sunday Tribune
Christy O'Connor has covered GAA nationally for fourteen years and is the author of the acclaimed Last Man Standing- Hurlling Goalkeepers.
Half the royalties from the sale of this book will go to the Jack and Jill Foundation and to Croi.
