Dub Sub Confidential
  • Published: 1 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241971666
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:

Dub Sub Confidential

Formats & editions
EBook
24 Sep 2015
Paperback
1 Jul 2016
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Sex, drugs and Gaelic football: a GAA memoir like no other

John Leonard was a gifted Gaelic football goalkeeper who had the misfortune to reach his prime at the same time, and in the same county, as one of the all-time greats: Stephen Cluxton. Unless something happened to Clucko, Leonard was always going to be number 2. Of course, it didn't help that he had a problem with drink and drugs ...

Dub Sub Confidential is John Leonard's vivid, witty and searingly honest account of his life in and out of sport. It is a GAA memoir like no other yet published - a book about how Gaelic games collide with real life. It is also a brilliant read from a remarkable personality.
  • Published: 1 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241971666
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:

Praise for Dub Sub Confidential

Four decades after Eamon Dunphy published Only a Game?, his seminal book on football, John Leonard has produced the Gaelic football equivalent - only it's better ... This strikingly blunt and honest portrait of the bizarre goings-on in the GAA world includes astute observations not just on modern sport but also modern life.

Sunday Times Sports Books of the Year

As fascinating as its insights into the Dublin dressing room and the big matchdays are, to reduce Dub Sub Confidential to being just a sports or GAA book is to do it an injustice; it is an astonishing, exceptional, visceral account of a confused young man

Kieran Shannon, Irish Examiner

Reads like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ... a great read

Ray D'Arcy, RTE Radio 1

The overall feeling of Leonard's sporting life is of a high-wire act. He somehow managed to have a part-time romance with Dublin football while full-bloodedly chasing whatever and whoever was on offer in Dublin after dark ... There is an antic and often jubilant energy to Leonard's writing

Keith Duggan, Irish Times

Remarkable ... a stark and searingly honest memoir

the42.ie

Students of Gaelic football will be intrigued by his account of the rivalry with Cluxton, arguably the most important player of modern times

Sunday Times

A great read. Honest and really well written

Conor McKeon

A fine read

Damian Lawlor

John Leonard's brutally honest account of a road less travelled and his time as understudy to iconic Dubs keeper Stephen Cluxton transcends sport.

Irish Independent

Engaging, honest, sad and frightening in places - ultimately raw and real. Couldn't put it down

Ryle Nugent, RTÉ

Outstanding. Can't recommend it highly enough. Instant classic.

Joe Molloy

Compelling and ground-breaking

Dave Hannigan, Evening Echo

A must read

Loaded, Top 10 Books of 2015

Dub-Sub Confidential has already become a sort of handbook for anyone in sport struggling with mental health issues, and for good reason: not many footballers will openly confess to double-popping pills or turning up for training half blitzed. Yet Leonard is clearly in a better place now.

Ian O'Riordan, Irish Times

Searingly honest; funny and sad at the same time

Gavin Cummiskey