Footy Books

[Demonland 73,324]

Any other recommendations?

The Coach (1978), by John Powers

 

More than 40 years after its publication, John Powers’ account of the 1977 season spent with North Melbourne under Ron Barassi remains the standard-bearer for books about the game.

It kicks off with the start of pre-season training (on January 24!) at JJ Holland Reserve in Kensington and ends with the Roos holding the premiership cup at the MCG and singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow’’ in tribute to their coach, who had poked and prodded and pushed them all season.

“I hope you’ll agree that all the hard work and … all that shit put on you by the coach … was worth it,’’ Barassi responded.

Every door opened for Powers at North Melbourne and he made the most of access that writers these days gain only in their dreams.

Time and Space (2015), by James Coventry

ABC sports reporter Coventry turns a sharp eye to the tactics of the game, how they evolved in the face of the rule book, their effectiveness and how they continue to occupy the minds of coaches and their strategists.

Deftly drawn profiles add to an immensely enjoyable read. “I don’t read much but I couldn’t put it down!’’ one VFL coach confessed after being gifted a copy.

Coventry and a crew of fellow thinkers also kicked goals in 2018 with Footballistics.

Rose Boys (2001), by Peter Rose

 

In late January, 1974, against NSW at the SCG, Robert Rose took his place in a Victorian batting line-up that had Test men Keith Stackpole, Ian Redpath and Paul Sheahan in the top four.

He scored 23 in his only innings of the match.

Three weeks later, at the age of 22, he was involved in a car accident that left him a quadriplegic. Rose was not only playing Shield cricket but league football for Footscray, where he’d made nine senior appearances in 1973.

The son of Collingwood great Bob Rose had started his career with the Magpies in 1970. In the Rose Boys, Peter Rose writes powerfully and movingly about his family, his dual-sportsman brother’s life and his death in 1999 at the age of 47.

Southern Sky, Western Oval (1994), by Martin Flanagan

 

Just as Powers shadowed the Kangaroos in 1977, Flanagan followed Footscray in 1993.

Having fended off a merger with Fitzroy a couple of years earlier, the Bulldogs had risen spectacularly to 16 wins and six losses in 1992, and coach Terry Wheeler had amplified his ambitions for his team.

He saw possibilities whereas the old Bulldog way was to sense problems.

“I’m inviting you to record Footscray’s premiership year,’’ he had told Flanigan.

But, injuries conspiring against them, Bulldogs finished ninth, and early in the 1994 season. Wheeler was unceremoniously dumped. Flanagan’s profiles of president Peter Gordon, players Steve ‘Super’ Macpherson and Simon Atkins, and veteran property steward Jack McGovern are a delight.

He returned to the Western Oval after the premiership year, 2016, writing A Wink from the Universe, but from a greater distance than Southern Sky.

The Greatest Game (1988), edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Ken Spillman

 

The list of contributors includes Tim Winton, Gerald Murname, Geoffrey Blainey, Bruce Dawe, Manning Clark, Laurie Clancy, Don Watson, David Williamson, Keith Dunstan, Terry Lane, Jack Hibberd, Dinny O’Hearn, Barry Oakley, Garrie Hutchinson, Frank Hardy, Alan Hopgood and Barry Dickins.

There is some literary heft in that lot. Then there is Brent Crosswell, who weighs in with an illuminating piece on his Carlton teammate Vin Catoggio.

“Vinny Catoggio had been killing them in the seconds, so Carlton took a punt and made him second rover for the big match. He was a lovely little bloke, just a kid, and on top of that it was his first game, but that didn’t matter when he failed in the 1973 grand final,’’ Crosswell writes.

Dickins’ tribute to Butch Gale, Watson’s recollection of big-kicking Ian Robertson playing at tiny Loch in South Gippsland and Dawes’ classic poem Life Cycle, which will endure as long as the game itself, are other highlights.

Local Rites (2001), by Paul Daffey

 

Daffey spent a year chronicling grassroots football, dropping in on clubs in the scrub and the suburbs, and emerged with stories spilling out of his back pockets.

The 26 chapters deal with a club, a competition, a controversy or a character, most memorably an ageing Shane Loveless playing out his career at Nagambie, a gun for hire running short of bullets after years of prodigious goalkicking in country football (legendary Mornington Peninsula spearhead Simon Goosey plucks a few pages too).

And the chapter on Nicky Winmar having a run at Warburton-Millgrove is exceptional.

Daffey released a similar book last year, The Totem Poles of Ouyen United, another must-read.

The Great Australian Book of Football Stories, compiled by Garrie Hutchinson

Garrie Hutchinson’s ‘Watcher’ column in The Age brought him a devoted readership, and he gained more appreciative followers with this anthology, culled mainly from newspapers and magazines.

It’s worth tracking down just for Herald man Robert Coleman’s rib-tickler on football fans, from the “wiseguy’’ (“he has a wisecrack, filed and card-indexed in his head, for every occasion’’) to the “ratbag’’ (“loudmouthed aggressive, uncouth, usually two-thirds stoned and a thorough nuisance to everybody’’) to “eagle eyes’’ (“observes from 200 yards away on a dull day, things the umpire cannot see from a distance of five feet’’). Look for Geoff Slattery’s masterly profile of Jack Dyer too.

1970 And Other Stories of the Australian Game (1999), by Martin Flanagan

 

Flanagan reflects on a grand final he says was “truly grand’’, Carlton coming from 44 points down at halftime to defeat Collingwood in 1970.

Key figures from the match are interviewed and their recollections are riveting; warm memories for Blues, regret for Magpies at having squandered such a substantial lead. Meeting the press after the grand final, Collingwood coach Bob Rose popped the first question.

“What went wrong?’’ he asked. Seven years later Carlton coach Barassi inflicted more pain on Collingwood as coach of North Melbourne.

Yellow and Black, a Season with Richmond (2018), by Konrad Marshall

Marshall was fortunate on two fronts as he tailed the Tigers through 2017. Given unfettered access, he was a fly-on-the-wall observer of all aspects of Richmond’s operation. In the hands of a writer of his talent, it was always going to make for a riveting read.

Then came a triumphant kicker, with the Tigers winning their first premiership since 1980, at last giving their army of supporters something to rejoice about. Yellow and Black will doubtless take its place alongside The Coach as a classic work of literature about the game.

 

The Point of It All, The Story of St Kilda Football Club (1992), by Jules Feldmann and Russell Holmesby

 

A history of the Sainters, a club that began in 1873 and has survived all types of threats to its existence.

Despite winning only one premiership, St Kilda’s story is rich in characters, incidents and some of the greatest players in the sport’s history.

The constant thread is resilience in the face of adversity.

The book’s pictorial strength and visual appeal broke new ground for a football publication. Saints historian Holmesby’s Heroes with Haloes is superb too.

Football Ltd (1995), by Garry Linnell

Entertainingly and always stylishly, Linnell writes about football in the boardroom and the movers and shakers and (occasional shysters) involved in the transformation of the VFL into the AFL.

In his acknowledgments Linnell said it wasn’t until he started as a sportswriter “that I discovered there was another game going on’’.

“It was, in many ways, just as tough as the one out on the field,’’ he said. “And it was far more brutal.’’

The game has hurtled forward; since the release of Football Ltd, more clubs have joined the AFL; TV rights have soared past $2.5 billion (in 1987 Channel 7 and the league squabbled over a $3.3 million deal!); the players and their association are big players at the negotiating table; home-and-away matches are played overseas; between them clubs employ thousands of people, their coaching boxes humming with laptops … in many aspects it’s become Football Unlimited.

Up Where, Cazaly? (1981) By Leonie Sandercock and Ian Turner

 

When author Ian Turner died in 1978 he had finished seven chapters of a social history of the game. Leonie Sandercock picked up the baton and finished what was to become Up Where, Cazaly?

It’s an incisive account of the growth of football from an amateur endeavour to an industry, and its standing from the viewpoint of clubs, administrators, players and supporters. A question on the inside flap is just as pertinent today: “Can the game survive its own spiralling costs, contradictions, and conflicts of interest between fans, players and officials.’’

Fifteen Young Men (2016), by Paul Kennedy

In 1892 the Mornington football team was returning from a match at Mordialloc by boat when it came to grief, overcome by a wind squall.

The lives of 15 vibrant men were lost, shattering a community. ABC sports reporter Kennedy got to know the story when he was a young reporter at the Mornington Leader newspaper, often taking his lunch at a memorial at the end of Main St.

Years later he researched everything to it and produced an outstanding book. From the first sentence – “There. Something on the reef, near the point.’’ – it drags the reader in like an undertow.

Coleman, The Untold Story of an AFL Legend (2014), By Doug Ackerly

An absorbing biography of the brilliant Bomber who was grounded prematurely by a knee injury. Coleman booted 537 goals from only 98 matches, topping the league table in ‘49 (100 goals), ‘50 (120), ‘52 (103) and ‘53 (97).

And then he was gone, after marking and falling awkwardly in a match in 1954.

How good was he?

“I would say he was as good a player as your grandfather tells you he was, and probably even better,’’ Melbourne writer and broadcaster Ackerly said.

“I was most typical in that I thought, ‘Five and a half seasons, you can’t get too carried away’. But what he did … particularly in ‘52, when he kicked 103 goals in the wettest winter ever and the next two blokes on the goalkicking table kicked 103 between them …. sort of proves to me that he was just a genius.’’

‘You’ll Only Go in for Your Mates’ (1991), by Barry Dickins

 

A collection of columns the inimitable Dickins wrote for the Melbourne Times between 1984 and 1990, mostly about his beloved Fitzroy Football Club.

From the outer of suburban grounds he takes in the highs and all-too-regular lows of the Royboys: “I smoke my Stuyvesant down to the last fitful cough of cancer to inhale the love of you, the passion you inspire, the deep and good feeling of you, the pleasure of you and the old ache of you, Fitzroy Football Club. You bastards.’’ Few have written about football with more vitality or originality than Dickins.

The Roar of the Crowd (1987), by Marc Fiddian

Marc Fiddian has written 112 books, many of them about the Victorian Football Association, which he covered for daily papers in the 1970s.

Here he focuses on the grand finals, summarising matches and recording the premiership teams. It’s an invaluable reference for fans of the old VFA, as is Fiddian’s hard-to-find The Pioneers and his histories of long-lost clubs like Oakleigh and Geelong West.

The Straight Dope, by Chip Le Grand (2016)

Le Grand untangles the mess that was the Essendon Football Club supplements scandal, no easy task considering all the claims and counter assertions made by the various parties.

He researched the bags out of it and set it all out in pin-sharp prose. The Straight Dope won the prestigious Walkley Book Award in 2015.

The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers (1992), by Russell Holmesby and Jim Main

First published as The Encyclopedia of League Footballers, the so-called “Bible of footy’’ has never been out of print, receiving regular updates, the most recent in 2018.

Every player who has appeared at league level is listed, with his games tally, jumper number and date of birth.

There is little doubt the book has embarrassed a few old-timers who like to say they played “one or two’’ games, the mists of time their cover.

Soon after the Encyclopedia’s publication one former VFA player who had regularly bragged of making one senior appearance at Hawthorn under John Kennedy fell silent when it was pointed out his name was missing from the bible.

The Hafey Years (2011), by Elliot Cartledge

A richly reported and well written account of Tommy Hafey’s flag-filled time at Richmond. A battling player, he became a legendary coach, his 248 games in charge bringing 173 victories, and the 1967, ’69, ’73 and ’74 premierships. His players loved him. “He wasn’t strong tactically but in terms of communication, leading by example, caring and loyalty, you’d give him ten out of ten,’’ asserted Ian Stewart.

Loose Men Everywhere (2002), by John Harms

Wherever he travelled – and through his childhood his family seemed to traverse more ground than Michael Tuck – part of Harms’ heart was with Geelong, following the fortunes of the fitful Cats.

His writing hums with humour – that is the Harms way — as he relates how football put its fix on him.

He decided he wanted to play and “come flying past on the wing like Micky Turner and burst clear and send a thirty-metre handball to some teammate on the run.’’

Play On, published in 2015, collects Loose Men Everywhere and his two other outstanding books, Memoirs of a Mug Punter and Confessions of a Thirteenth Man.

AND SOME MORE NOTABLES

■ My Journey (2014), by Jim Stynes with Warwick Green

■ From the Outer: Watching Football in the 80s (1980s), by Garrie Hutchinson

■ Comeback: The Fall and Rise of Geelong (2016), by James Button

■ Heart of the Game, 45 years of Football on Television (2001), edited by Michael Roberts

■ The Mighty West: The Bulldogs’ Journey from Daydream Believers to Premiership Heroes (2017), by Kerrie Soraghan

■ Jock, the Story of Jock McHale, Collingwood’s Greatest Coach (2011), by Glenn McFarlane

■ Game for Anything: The Tommy Lahiff Story (1999), by Ken Linnett

■ Barassi, The Biography (2010), by Peter Lalor

■ Roar, The Stories Behind AFL W (2018), by Samantha Lane

 

■ Murphy’s Lore (2015), by Bob Murphy

■ Fabulous Phil, the Phil Carman Story (2017), by Matt Watson

■ Champions All (2016), by Matt Zurbo

■ A Salute to the Great McCarthy (1970), by Barry Oakley

■ Cakewalk: The Inside Story of Collingwood’s 1990 Premiership (2010), by Michael Gleeson

■ Electrifying 80s (2019), edited by Russell Jackson

■ Barassi, The Life Behind the Legend (1995), by Peter McFarline

■ Saturday Afternoon Fever (1999), by Matthew Hardy

■ A Game of Our Own: the Origins of Australian Football (1990), by Geoffrey Blainey

■ Playing On (2015), by Michael Sexton

■ The Temple Down the Road (2003), by Brian Matthews

■ Polly Farmer: A Biography (1994), by Steve Hawke

■ The Red Fox, the Biography of Norm Smith (2008), by Ben Collins

■ King Richard, the Story of Dick Reynolds (2014), by Dan Eddy

[Dr. Gonzo 24,379]

A lot of those up there is highly recommend especially The Coach, Football Ltd and Time and Space

Id add Urge To Merge by Ian Ridley

The Grand Old Flag by Lynda Carroll

Grand Finals Vol 1, 2 and 3 (2 is the best )

The Phoenix Rises by Ross Oakley (hire it from the library or get it at a 2nd hand shop tho)

A Game of Our Own by Geoffrey Blainey

The Last Quarter by Martin Flanagan - includes his book about the 1970 GF, Souther Sky, Western Oval and The Game in Time of War

Also Every Game Ever Played, I have the 1992 edition that covers up to the 1991 season (probably no longer in print but was the bible for me as a kid)

 

[Sir Why You Little 37,251]

I have “The Coach” still a fantastic book

Probably because i went to all 5 weeks of the 1977 Final Series 

Shall NEVER forget the drawn GF

[george_on_the_outer 7,824]

and for the most telling book ever written about us...by our own Supermercado.......just to cheer you up during this time:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32955680-the-great-deepression

 

 

[Mazer Rackham 14,971]

And for those of a theatrical bent: plays about football (one made into a TV series, the other into a movie)

AND THE BIG MEN FLY by Alan Hopgood

THE CLUB by David Williamson

 

The GREAT MCCARTHY (mentioned above) was also made into a movie or TV special if memory serves.

[Deemania since 56 6,755]

How phascinating was an old collection of sequential 'Footy Records' discovered in a mate's garage ... no glamour, just print and a few snaps. 

[bush demon 2,122]

Stan Alves had a biog, or autobiog. Amazingly, his first three games (under Smith) occurred at the very, very end of MFC's reign of power and he went 3-0. For the next two hundred plus games of Alves'  career the Dees were mostly a deadbeat team.

[bush demon 2,122]

6 hours ago, bush demon said:

Stan Alves had a biog, or autobiog. Amazingly, his first three games (under Smith) occurred at the very, very end of MFC's reign of power and he went 3-0. For the next two hundred plus games of Alves'  career the Dees were mostly a deadbeat team.

https://www.booktopia.com.au/sacked-coach-stan-alves/book/9781920910938.html

 

[bush demon 2,122]

11 hours ago, bush demon said:

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by bush demon
Edit pic.

[Skuit 10,031]

I bought a Kindle today. 

Like a number of fellow Demonland denizens I got on board roughly around the time of the 88' grand final. Memories of that time are pretty fuzzy - and I missed the ****house but Robbie Flower era. 

For reasons I won't bother explaining, I also had almost no access to football between 2004 and 2008. Question is MFC-related book recommendations? For a better love of my club. 

[Queanbeyan Demon 6,902]

Robbie Flower's book was a good read. 

[Skuit 10,031]

13 minutes ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Robbie Flower's book was a good read. 

What's the title? 

 

[Skuit 10,031]

16 minutes ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Robbie Flower's book was a good read. 

I also have Google but it's all Robbie Fowler and some botanist named Robbie. 

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,522]

32 minutes ago, Skuit said:

I bought a Kindle today. 

Like a number of fellow Demonland denizens I got on board roughly around the time of the 88' grand final. Memories of that time are pretty fuzzy - and I missed the ****house but Robbie Flower era. 

For reasons I won't bother explaining, I also had almost no access to football between 2004 and 2008. Question is MFC-related book recommendations? For a better love of my club. 

'All bets are off' - David Schawrz
Incredible insight.

 

[Skuit 10,031]

3 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

'All bets are off' - David Schawrz
Incredible insight.

 

Cheers George Sr.

[Demonland 73,324]

47 minutes ago, Skuit said:

I bought a Kindle today. 

Like a number of fellow Demonland denizens I got on board roughly around the time of the 88' grand final. Memories of that time are pretty fuzzy - and I missed the ****house but Robbie Flower era. 

For reasons I won't bother explaining, I also had almost no access to football between 2004 and 2008. Question is MFC-related book recommendations? For a better love of my club. 

I was going to put a link to this thread in your thread but just decided to merge them. 

[Demonland 73,324]

45 minutes ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Robbie Flower's book was a good read. 

Is this the Robbie book you’re referring to?

Robbie Flower Book on EBay

[Skuit 10,031]

2 minutes ago, Demonland said:

I was going to put a link to this thread in your thread but just decided to merge them. 

Champion. Thanks Demonland!

[Skuit 10,031]

On 4/3/2020 at 12:51 PM, george_on_the_outer said:

and for the most telling book ever written about us...by our own Supermercado.......just to cheer you up during this time:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32955680-the-great-deepression

 

 

I contributed to this one in a very minor way. @Supermercado - my mother still has a hefty copy sitting there unloved and unread in her tiny apartment in Cairns, which the poor lady has given up asking me about. Any suggestions where I can tell her to pass it on? Happy to return to sender if you send me a PM. Or if someone on here wants to wallow in misery - probably a silly question - I will forward. 

[layzie 34,183]

4 hours ago, Skuit said:

I bought a Kindle today. 

Like a number of fellow Demonland denizens I got on board roughly around the time of the 88' grand final. Memories of that time are pretty fuzzy - and I missed the ****house but Robbie Flower era. 

For reasons I won't bother explaining, I also had almost no access to football between 2004 and 2008. Question is MFC-related book recommendations? For a better love of my club. 

What kind of Kindle did you get? Been looking at these lately for more portable reading on the go. 

[Happy Jack 197]

The funniest book about Ausy Rules has to be “The coach from the city” by Alan O’Toole. Fictional story of a guy who gets an up country gig as a coach with the worst bunch ever to pull on a jumper and .... well no spoilers. Got it for Christmas one year in my teens. A real hoot. Illustrations by Paul Rigby hilarious as well.

[Jumping Jack Clennett 1,820]

“The Red Fox” should be the top of the list.....not 50th!

[hemingway 7,633]

4 minutes ago, Jumping Jack Clennett said:

“The Red Fox” should be the top of the list.....not 50th!

Best footy book written (if you are a Senior Demon supporter). A wonderful insight into the great Norm Smith. 

[Skuit 10,031]

10 hours ago, layzie said:

What kind of Kindle did you get? Been looking at these lately for more portable reading on the go. 

Just the cheapest one. There were e-readers twice the price but the salesperson failed to convince me of the justification - and didn't really even bother trying. I think they've evolved to the point where the bottom end model serves the purpose for most consumers. 

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,958]

"The Paddock that Grew" by Keith Dunstan is a fascinating book about the history of the MCG. It's a long time since I read it and it probably has more about cricket than football given Keith established the other AFL, the Anti-Football League.

I suspect he actually was a fan of AFL (the football) but established the alternative AFL to enable him to satirise the game in his role as a writer for the old Sun News-Pictorial. (For the young amongst you, the Sun News-Pictorial was the predecessor of the Herald-Sun. For the really, really young ones, newspapers were where people used to get their news printed on paper...and paid for.)