The Irish News, Written by Paul Fitzpatrick, from 2/28/19
WPH Press, 11/28/21
Picture Courtesy of the GAA
The WPH has proudly presented the WPH Sunday Stats since the start of 2020, highlighting the Race 4 Eight’s and Icebreaker’s greatest champions and stats, longest winning streaks, greatest accomplishments, tournament directors, nicknames, obscure stats, handball’s origins and history, handball champions featured in national publications, and so much more.
This Sunday we will revisit an article from the February 2019 Irish News: Charly Shanks is Back – and he is back to win All Ireland Handball, written by the supremely talented Irish writer Paul Fitzpatrick. Shanks is a former Race 4 Eight #1, former All Ireland champion, and recently advanced to the final of the 2021 GAA Golden Gloves HERE with impressive victories against Niall O’Connor and Sean Kerr before falling to Paul Brady.
In February of 2019 Shanks and his wife had just welcomed their third child and Shanks had contemplated stepping away from the game, but decided to make a push for the 2019 All Ireland Championship.
Paul Fitzpatrick described the plight of a top handballer to perfection in reference to Shanks making his return to the top of the sport: “But the ball alley magic produced on the big days in the handball calendar does not happen by chance. The top players are slaves to the lonely hours between those four walls, perfecting their shots through repetition, fine-tuning their touch.”
Photos courtesy of GAA Handball.
Read Charly Shanks is Back – and he is back to win All Ireland Handball HERE
David Fink
WPH Historian