The Club by Christy O Connor

December 7th, 2010
by Weeshie Fogarty

I must admit at not being one bit surprised when I heard last Friday that a hurling book written by Clareman Christy o Connor had won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Christy had contacted me a few weeks ago and I did a lengthy interview with him on my Radio Kerry Terrace talk programme about the publication. And of course you can't talk to a person about the contents of his book unless you have read it from cover to cover. I did exactly that and quite simply it was a fascinating read.  I was in no doubt after interviewing the author on radio and delving into the contents that it would as the fellow said "take a lot of beating".  The Club quite simply is a chronicle of a season told by Christy with unflinching honesty and with no punches pulled.  He himself is still a player with the senior hurling team of St Joseph's Doora- Barefield who in 1999 won the All Ireland club championship. That winter they became only the second club in history to win successive Munster titles, and the following march they became the only Munster club to reach successive All Ireland finals.

Ten years later however St Josephs is a totally different place, well down the pecking order not just on the national scene but in their own county of Clare. There are as explained in detail in the book many of the 1999 team still greatly involved as players, hanging in there trying to squeeze one last county championship out of their aging bodies. All this is detailed in wonderful GAA language.  Christy makes it quite clear the continued growth of football in this previously hurling orientated club is having a devastating effect on the hurling. The footballers at under age and senior level is continuing to prosper and all at the cost of their magnificent hurling traditions.  He fumes about training sessions for hurling county championship games and many of the players opting for football training. Some players going off on a drinking session and failing to give the required dedication necessary in to day's world of the GAA. Does any of this ring a bell for you in relation to your own club? Well I believe the real beauty of this book is that it could apply to any club and anyone that has been involved in their own little club could close their eyes and wonder, "is he writing about us"? Because make no mistake about it what so ever but much of what is written between the pages of this book could be directly applied to any club in the organization.

Is there any club in existence who have not experienced underlying tensions and unofficial "meetings" in the run up to the Annual General Meeting? The following little extract should be familiar with thousands of club members all over the county. He writes, "Before 2009 even began, the word on the ground was that we were already in danger of being ripped apart. Or even tearing ourselves apart. Two guys were going head to head for the senior management job, one of whom had two sons on the team, and the fall out could sunder our season before it even began". Christy goes on to explain in great detail the infighting, the voting and the fall out from various confrontations between players and management and between the various fractions within St Josephs.

And then there are his own very personal traumas which for me makes the book so personal, real and which touches the very grass roots of an ordinary man obsessed with his club. He writes about the death of his baby daughter in anguished terms. In 2008 he and his wife Olivia found out that their unborn baby daughter was not going to survive outside the womb. She had a terminal condition. He writes about his terrible sadness and anguish. "I wanted to explode afterwards. I drove up to the pitch in Rosevlan the place where I had spend most of my childhood, to try and let it all out, to unleash the dam of anger and desolation. But I didn't because we had a match the next day. I felt I had to keep my emotions in check". Here the author opens up his heart and we have a rare glimpse of one GAA mans inner turmoil and tragedy. "There are other priorities" he explains. "Purchasing a white coffin. And a grave plot. Making prior funeral arrangements. By that stage hope has long faded into anguish and it becomes harder to hide it. Roisin was born on 26th January 2009. A beautiful baby girl who only survived for five minutes. Olivia got to hold Roisin for two of those precious minutes before she died in the mid wife's arms. Olivia then became my priority. My grief was shelved. I could express it later in my own time".  Christy recalls in harrowing terms how he and the club suffered two furthers tragedies when one of their greatest sons and the star of their All ireland win Ger Hoey died suddenly followed shortly afterwards by another great St Josephs stalwart Father Michael McNamara.

Christy o Connor has covered GAA as a journalist nationally for thirteen years and has been his clubs goalkeeper for twenty years. Who better then to tell this absorbing fly –on –the –wall story of effort, agony and struggles that literally defines the journey undertaken every season by all our club sides? Every club conflict to inter club tensions between hurling and football is your prize between the 230 pages of The Club. This is a cracking read, grass roots GAA at its purest and rawest, a great story of one mans trials and tribulations within his club. I have been a member of my own club Killarney Legion since 1954 when I purchased my first member card for 6p, (I still have it) and in all that time I have seen at first hand many trials and tribulations above and below the surface as the years rolled by. I have served in most capacities as an office, player, trainor and selector so I make no apologies when I say that I have seen it all. As I turned the pages of Christy's book I could easily associate the men and women of St Joseph's Doora Barefield with many of the wonderful people, both men and women whose friendships I have been fortunate to make as a Legion man down through the decads. Yes indeed the hunger to win, the conflict within the club, the joys of winning and the heartbreak of losing are all contained in this extraordinary year in the life of one mans GAA club. The author's honesty and openness come shinning through and it is very easy to understand why it has been chosen as Sports Book of the Year.

Fogra; The Kerry Dublin Association launch by Maurice Fitzgerald of the highly acclaimed DVD Secrets of "Kerry - A Captains Story" has been rearranged for Thursday December 16th in Shea's pub The Merchant.



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