Dimensions
162 x 240 x 30mm
'The greatest gaelic footballer of all time.' Pat Spillane 'One of the aristocrats of the game.' Colm O'Rourke Colm Cooper is one of the most revered and decorated gaelic footballers in history. The holder of five All-Ireland winners' medals and eight Allstars, he has been Kerry's stand-out marquee forward for the past fifteen years. Reared in a ofootball-mado house in Killarney, Cooper became one of the GAA's most recognizable and best-loved figures at a time of tumultuous change in the game. But the man known nationally as 'Gooch' is also an intensely private figure who has never courted publicity. His personal story remains largely untold. Gooch - The Autobiography unlocks a previously un-opened door, tracing a compelling path through the life behind the image and beyond the headlines. It tells of childhood days pockmarked almost endlessly with heavy defeats and excruciating frustration before giving way to his extraordinary breakthrough year of '02 and the compelling successes that followed. It shines a unique light on football's so-called 'hard men' and the unscrupulous tactics used to stop the game's best forwards. And it covers a deeply personal struggle with the trauma triggered by the drowning of a close friend in '05 and the sudden death of his father one year later. For the first time, Cooper talks openly too about being dropped from the Kerry team in '09 because of drinking and of his decision to walk away from the abject violence of International Rules after being concussed in a Melbourne Test. He re-traces the lonely road back from an appalling knee injury suffered in 2014 to the euphoria of finally winning an All-Ireland club medal with his beloved Dr Crokes in 2017. The book goes to the heart of arguments about professionalism in the GAA and the changing environment for amateur sportsmen in the pay-per-view era. Where is the GAA heading? Cooper's views will make for a compelling read. Gooch - The Autobiography is the story of an ordinary man who became an extraordinary footballer, and is sure to be one of the landmark GAA books of all time.
