John Leonard

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.

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

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

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

Remarkable ... a stark and searingly honest memoir

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

A great read. Honest and really well written

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

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

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

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.

Searingly honest; funny and sad at the same time

A Goalkeeper's Life with – and without – the Dubs

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.

John Leonard

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 po ...

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, exc ...

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

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 po ...

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, exc ...

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

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 po ...

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, exc ...

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

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