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Nothing beats a good sports book. And nothing beats the way in which athletes connect with each other via the pages of an honest autobiography.
That’s what Off The Ball discovered when we got the likes of Derval O’Rourke, Ken Doherty, Christy O’Connor and Anthony Moyles to recommend their favourite sports books.
Broadcaster John Kelly of RTE Lyric FM chose The Art of Goalkeeping. It’s rather fitting that the Arsenal fan is enamoured with a book written by former Gunners keeper Bob Wilson. As Kelly told Ger Gilroy, one of the key aspects of the book is the way it transports you back to the 1960s and 1970s.
“It’s a very good book, but it also represents that nostalgia that people my age feel for an era long gone. This was a time where diving was a skill goalkeepers perfected and nobody else. It was a time when footballers had names like Bob. And also Bob Wilson for me was one of my heroes growing up.”
Former goalkeeper Bob Wilson and David Seamen, 1995. Photo: ©INPHO/Allsport
Kelly explained that the book is like an instruction manual for budding goalkeepers and even delves into the psychology needed to keep goal. “You have to be slightly mad,” as one quote in the book’s introduction attests.
The choice of Father Ted co-writer and Drogheda United fan Arthur Mathews comes from a similar age. He brought his sticker book collection 1970/71 Soccer Stars, The Gala Collection into studio.
Sticker collections were an everyday part of football culture for youngsters in the 70s. It was no different for Matthews, who still looks up eBay to complete the collection. “I started collecting those stickers in 1970/71. Before that I wasn’t really a football fan so I can date it to that season when I started collecting,” he said, while listing the former stars that were adhered to the sticker book pages.
“If you look at old photographs of footballers, people you haven’t thought about for many years, immediately their names come back to you. It’s kind of extraordinary.”
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read deals with an air crash involving a Uruguayan rugby team. The disaster eerily took place on Friday the 13th, 1972 and saw 16 people emerge alive from the plane’s wreckage in the Andes Mountains.
A critical success upon its release in 1974, the book has had an effect on former Meath footballer Anthony Moyles who said: “It is prevalent all the way through the story that being a team, and being a group of people, that they could get themselves through this. It was one thing after another from the crash itself. Then they heard the search party call it off on the radio. There’s a quote by one of the youngest guys. He says, ‘This is great news. Now we know that we have to get out of here ourselves.’ That was real leadership. I remember reading that and thinking ‘wow’.”
Moyles recounted how the survivors resorted to eating those who had been killed in the crash en route to their miraculous emergence from their ordeal.
Broadcaster, The Clubauthor and former hurler Christy O’Connor was touched by Ronald Reng’s A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke. A winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2011, it tells the tragic story of former Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke who committed suicide in 2009—just six months before the 2010 World Cup.
“It’s a tragic book. He was a professional goalkeeper who appeared to have it all and played for a string of Europe’s top clubs. Beneath all the glory and the lights there was a darker story, and Ronald Reng really captures that,” said O’Connor.
“It’s a fascinating insight into depression and how it affects so many people, even at the top level of sport. The fact that I would have played in goals myself meant I could empathise with the sense of loneliness and isolation that goalkeepers often feel now.”
Andre Agassi blows kisses to the crowd in his last career match at the U.S. Open, 2006. Photo: INPHO/Getty Images
Irish sprint hurdler Derval O’Rourke was struck by the honesty of Andre Agassi’s book Open where the former tennis star vents his frustration and loneliness about life as an elite sportsperson.
“You have moments where you absolutely hate it; going to an event where you’re injured and knowing you’re not in shape, but you still have to do it in order to get back running. It was the first book I read that was that honest,” said Derval, who believes the book really captures the acute highs and searing lows of a sports career.
Openmade headlines upon its 2009 release after it revealed that Agassi used crystal meth at one point in his career, but Derval thinks that the furore should not detract from the overall message contained inside its pages.
Former Armagh All-Ireland winner Enda McNulty grew up surrounded by books and the sports work that captured his imagination was NBA legend Michael Jordan’s Driven From Within.
McNulty explained that he related to the passages where Jordan “inspires people to be their best in the basketball court, school and in life”.
But he was also fascinated by insights into Jordan’s motivation and attention to detail in his relentless pursuit of success.
“Jordan admitted to himself that he wasn’t the most talented kid, but he was the one who worked the hardest,” said McNulty, who also explained how Jordan’s book inspired him to set up his own company following his retirement from Gaelic football.
Off The Ball horse racing pundit Donn McClean praised the “compelling” writing in Christy O’Connor’s The Club. He was struck by the “poignant parts, interlaced with the journey a club goes through” during a hurling championship season, with community and grief being strong themes.
McLean felt the book helped him appreciate just how technical hurling is compared to Gaelic football, as well as the amount of practice that goes into honing yours skills required to master the hurl and sliotar.
Paul McGrath 1994. Photo: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland
Like Agassi’s autobiography, 1997 Snooker World Champion Ken Doherty was compelled by the honesty of Back from the Brink, the story of Ireland soccer legend Paul McGrath’s life and career.
“It’s very sad at times, very harrowing,” says Doherty of the book. “But the level of commitment he went through to get a drink at times… he had a lot of bad days where he woke up on park benches, not knowing what happened the night before. I thought he was very brave in his book, very open and very honest.”
Listen to Arthur Matthews, John Kelly and Anthony Moyles discuss their choices on Off The Ball
Derval O’Rourke, Donn McLean and Enda McNulty chat to Off The Ball’s Joe Molloy about their picks.
This article originally appeared in Newstalk Magazine for iPad in February, for more details go here.
