The Game A Journey Into the Heart of Sport

The Game is a multifaceted reflection on sport. It is part memoir, outlining Tadhg Coakley’s time as a player and fan, and how sport has shaped his life. But it also tackles sport on a universal scale—the good and the bad—and its immeasurable influence on our world. For fans, sport can be all-consuming. Indeed, we are consuming sport in ever greater gulpfuls, often blindly. It has a dark side; it is rife with corruption, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, and a raft of toxic masculine behaviour, and Coakley interrogates his own attitudes on each of these fronts. On the other hand, sport builds all manner of valuable connections and communities, and in sport—as in art—people can forge their own identities with grace, imagination, and the possibility of what may be. This duality is one of the most fascinating aspects of sport. Written with warmth, openness, and keen insight, The Game is an entertaining and thought-provoking meditation on the uniquely intense highs and lows of loving sport in today’s world.

Tadhg Coakley is from Cork. His debut novel, The First Sunday in September (2018), was shortlisted for the Mercier Press Fiction prize. His second, Whatever It Takes, was chosen as the 2020 Cork, One City One Book. Tadhg’s short stories, articles, and essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, Winter Papers, and The Irish Times, and he writes about sport for the Irish Examiner.

Preface Part 1 The Game Ekstasis Part 2 Miracles Kisses Part 3 Initiations, Longing to Belong Memories – Peculiar Veracities The Collective Giving Voice to my Own Astonishment Part 4 Dark Passions My Sports Hero Riku Riski and Some Questions Am I Sexist? Losing – The Anonymous Subsoil Part 5 Possession A Place Beyond Words Emotion – Abrogation Part 6 Hurt 1: Masculinity Hurt 2: Fallibility My Coronavirus Comeback Part 7 Returning Home to Innocence