The Autobiography - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Henry Shefflin was born in 1979 and started playing senior inter-county hurling for Kilkenny in 1999. He won a record eleven All-Irelands, and been selected as an All-Star eleven times and as Hurler of the Year a record three times. He is the all-time leading scorer in championship hurling.

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'The greatest player of this, or perhaps any, generation' Sean Moran, Irish Times

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Since the turn of the millennium, when Kilkenny established itself as the dominant force in hurling, one man has stood out: Henry Shefflin. Now widely regarded as the greatest hurler of all time, Shefflin has won more All-Stars and more All-Ireland medals than any other player in history.

Now, Shefflin tells his own story: an intensely personal, honest and self-questioning account of the fiercely driven man at the heart of a remarkable sequence of Kilkenny sides. Beneath the surface image of calm efficiency and effortless genius, his hurling life has included its share of bitter disappointments, agonizing injuries and self-doubt. As a young player, he did not seem to be marked out for greatness: as late as the summer of 1998, he was sixteenth man - out of sixteen - for Kilkenny intermediates, and he came very close to taking a job in the States. By the end of that summer, he was racking up huge scores for the under-21s; by November, he was in the senior panel; and by the following summer he was a fixture in the senior team.

What happened thereafter has become the stuff of legend - but Shefflin never bought into the 'King Henry' myth. What this book reveals is how a fairly ordinary young man achieved extraordinary things through a remarkable combination of hard work, intense focus and utter determination. He writes with warmth and candour of the great rivalries with Cork and Tipperary, the controversies, the injuries, the regrets, and the greatest days. He paints a nuanced portrait of his relationship with Brian Cody, of the dynamics within a team full of great players and personalities, and of the relationships that sustained him through his darkest times. What emerges is the testament of a man utterly committed to his craft, to his community and to his county, and one of the truly great Irishmen of recent times.