Book description
In 1999, the hurlers of St Joseph s Doora-Barefield won the All-Ireland
club championship. That winter, they became only the second club in
history to win successive Munster club titles, and the following March
they became the only Munster club to reach successive All-Ireland club
finals. Ten years on, St Joseph s is in a totally different place, well
down the pecking order not just nationally, but in County Clare. the
senior team is still spearheaded by many members of the 1999 All-Ireland
winning team, who are raging at the dying of the light. At the beginning
of the 2009 season, the team, club and parish were deeply wounded by two
family tragedies. One of those tragedies the sudden death of one
member of the 1999 team cut deep into the soul of the senior team. And
that was not the last tragedy to strike the club .. As part of the
healing process, the senior team made a pact to honour the memory of
those lost by defying the odds and becoming county champions once again.
A campaign fuelled by emotion and pain began promisingly, but slowly
began to unravel into one of the stormiest and controversial in the club
s history. The story of St Joseph's Doora-Barefield is unique; but it is
also a story that anyone connected with one of the 1,700 other GAA clubs
will relate to. From player infighting to player-management stand-offs,
team-bonding and on-pitch battles, The Club is a chronicle of the 2009
season told with unflinching honesty by Christy O Connor, who covers GAA
for the Sunday Times and who has been the St Joseph s senior team
goalkeeper for 20 years. This is a story like no other, a
fly-on-the-wall tale of the effort, agony and struggles that define the
journey undertaken every season by every club side. This is grass-roots
GAA at its purest and rawest, a great story brilliantly told. Christy
O'Connor writes about GAA for the Sunday Times. For twenty years he has
kept goal for the St Joseph's Doora-Barefield senior hurling side, and
he is also vice-chairman of the club. He is the author of the acclaimed
Last Man Standing: Hurling Goalkeepers, which was shortlisted for the
2005 Boylesports Irish Sports Book of the Year Award.
