The Game is a multifaceted reflection on sport. It is part memoir, outlining Tadhg Coakleys time as a player and fan, and how sport has shaped his life. But it also tackles sport on a universal scalethe good and the badand 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 sportas in artpeople 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 todays world.