The closing chapter on sports books of the year
If you’re following the Irish sports books scene any bit closely, then its award season has probably left you feeling a tad confused, as it has us. One appears to favour , the other, a , with little apparent sentiment or room for a .
If you were to set out to win the Bord Gáis award, which was presented to Cora Staunton with her appropriately-titled last Wednesday, then an autobiography would appear the obvious — indeed only — way to go. Only one of the six nominated books — Paul Rouse’s terrific — wasn’t a ghosted effort as Davy Fitzgerald, Sean Cavanagh, Andy Lee, and Rosemary Smith were in the house along with Cora.
In fact only once since the scheme was established in 2007 as part of the Irish Book Awards has the category’s winner been a non-autobiography, that exception being David Walsh’s account of his pursuit of Lance Armstrong and the Texan’s .
Yet the very next day after collecting the award at the big gala night in the Burlo — or the Clayton Hotel Burlington Road as it’s now officially known — Staunton, like four of her fellow Bord Gáis nominees, hadn’t even been shortlisted for the eir Sport book of the year.
Instead Lee was the only one put back into the ring for that one, where he was joined by a fellow boxer, or at least the study of one in , written by Paul D Gibson, as well as , written with Declan Lynch.
A cursory or derisory look at that shortlist and some of the award’s previous winners and you’d be forgiven for thinking the scheme should be titled the eir Misery Lit — and not Sports — Book of the Year.
In its first year, 2015, welcomingly filling the four-year void left by William Hill disbanding its Irish scheme, the winner was John Leonard’s , the remarkable account of a former Dublin goalkeeper who struggled with drugs after being abused by his local priest as a child.
In 2016 there was some momentary relief in Kieran Donaghy’s ghosted by this column, but only after it marginally squeezed out Cathal McCarron’s which detailed the Tyrone footballer’s gambling difficulties.
Then last year the winner was Philly McMahon’s , the story of two brothers: McMahon who chose football, and tragically, John, who took another path, spiralling into heroin addiction and ultimately death.
And now this year you have another book up that’s about a man’s gambling addiction and another about a man who also had his issues with gambling — and depression, and drugs, and had his throat slashed and his calf shot by the IRA.
This particular academy would appear to be less enamoured by a sweet, beautiful film like than a Last Exit To Brooklyn. Less Saoirse Ronan and more Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Throw in Lee, who recalls his childhood in a caravan as a gypsy, and these awards aren’t so much as No Country for Middle-Class Men — or Women. Even a hardened obsessive like Jackie Tyrrell with his and the accompanying Game of Thrones soundtrack would have to politely excuse and remove himself from this sort of neighbourhood.
All-Ireland medals he might have by the bucket with plenty of attitude to boot, but without the poverty or mental health issue, he ain’t going to be the last man standing in this ring; Celtic Crosses ain’t much currency in these parts. His book may have told us a lot more about Cody’s Kilkenny than McMahon’s did about Gavin’s Dublin — the latter subject was clearly out-of-bounds for McMahon’s brilliant ghostwriter Niall Kelly — but lacking an issue obviously cost him more than it did McMahon lacking any insight into the dressing room he inhabits.
It is often said — and rightly said — that the best sports books are about much more than sport. But what’s striking about Magee’s book is just how little sport is in it. There’s plenty of scrapes and fights all right, but most of them are without a glove being laced.
The first hundred pages barely mentions boxing. Later on there’s some more but not much more than Forrest Gump spent on the protagonist’s career as an elite college footballer and a full-time international table tennis player. Is a better sports movie than ?
Categorising as a sports book could also appear something of a stretch. At least Magee was in the ring. O’Reilly wasn’t. But boy did he take the punches. And how he has reminded us it’s not just players that can get entrapped by gambling. Fans, punters, get reeled in too.
Ultimately though, the judges can justify their decision. In the end they plumped for the three books that were best written, the three stories best told, simple as. Declan Lynch has done a masterful job conveying the depths O’Reilly plunged to, as has Gibson in telling the depravity Magee was subjected to and resorted to.
The best sports books, they say, tell you something about America or Ireland or wherever they’re based. Well, Magee’s story is a story of Belfast, and O’Reilly’s collaboration with Lynch is a remarkable insight into the hidden reality of modern Ireland where even the postman is not safe from the ravages of gambling.
We still have an issue with the shortlist though.
If the Bord Gáis Awards have at least one nomination too many with six, then the eir scheme has at least one too few. Two years ago it had five nominees before reducing itself to just three last year.
If anything, the standard has gone up the past two years. Donal McAnallen’s wonderful portrayal of his late brother Cormac deserved some love last year, its failure to land a nomination from either awards illustrating the flaws of both schemes than any shortcoming of the book itself.
This year another historian, Rouse, can consider himself similarly unfortunate, as can at least one other autobiography, an undisputed sports book.
For the most part though the eir scheme gets it more right than wrong, and a lot more right than its rival scheme. Christy O’Connor’s classic didn’t even make the shortlist for the 2010 Irish Book Awards yet a fortnight later rightly walked away with the Irish William Hill award. In 2015 and 2016 Leonard and Donaghy had a similar experience; not even invited by an anonymous panel of judges for the big bash with all the big stars in the Burlo, then the overall winner of the more accountable and credible eir panel which has not just upheld but raised adjudicating standards from the William Hill era.
That’s what makes McMahon’s book such a triumph. It is one of only three books to do ‘the double’ of winning at both the Oscars that is the Irish Book Awards gala and at the more Golden-Globes-style eir or William Hill or Boyle Sports (the latter being the first crowd to initiate an Irish sports book scheme, in 2005): Paul McGrath’s and, perhaps surprisingly, Trevor Brennan’s , are the two others.
With Cora not on the eir shortlist, there can be no double this year, but McMahon’s ghostwriter might pull off a double of sorts — or at least a back-to-back. A year after superbly crafting the Dubliner’s story, Niall Kelly has done the same in relaying Lee’s. The book is cinematic, written nearly entirely in the present tense, taking you from one great scene to another as if you were there.
The judges’ decision will be revealed next Monday. On this scorecard, Lee is the winner. It’s gritty but not grim, without the rage. It even has elements of , the kid from Ireland who leaves home for the States. And, with his beautiful love story with Maud, even a touch of , thankfully without the breakup. Maybe this time the nice guy does win.
