Aussie Rules Footy books

[Pseudo]

Goodpeople,

The topic of footy books came up in a thread over on SL.org. In particular, the fact that your typical footy book is heavily slanted in favour of the Victorian game. I made the following post which I reproduce here in the hope that it might generate some further angst and discussion. Let us know if there are any other footy books worth a read out there, and please be encouraged to give a scathing review of anything which perpetuates the "football=Victoria" myth.

Footnote: I am in awe and respect of the recently produced SA Football Media Guide and also Dion Hayman's earlier book of SANFL records. These two publications are a shining light in the darkness of football history.

--------

Aussie Rules Football books are generally not worth the cover price. Most are smug little treatises on the (then) VFL and give scant attention to anything west of Victoria.

Case in point: The Winter Game by Somebody Pascoe. A very thorough examination of the style of game played in the VFL since the turn of the century and concise commentary on the sociology of the game. Each chapter covers roughly a decade of VFL football. At the end of each chapter is a brief summary of the state of the game in WA and SA - very much a token gesture. By the 1980s chapter the WAFL coverage had expanded to a few pages, but the SANFL didn't even get mentioned - apparently football in SA disappeared after 1979!

Second case in point: The Complete Guide to Australian Football by Ken Piesse: An utter misnomer if ever there was one. Alphabetical listing of all V/AFL clubs, and major players in the V/AFL over history. If a South Aussie (or West Aussie, Tassie, etc) is mentioned then it's only in the context of his V/AFL career. The entire SANFL is given a 2 page entry, as was the WAFL. The Queensland League also got an entry, some of the other leagues might also have gotten short entries. Suffice to say the book should have been titled "complete guide to VFL football with a few notes on a handful of other leagues".

I used to own both of the above books but gave them to my granny years ago. Yes, my granny: she took them down to the book exchange to swap for large print Mills-and-Boonesque fodder

Perhaps the only post-1990 football book I have encountered which attempts to give equal weight to the SANFL and WAFL is Dave Warner's "Footy's Hall Of Shame". This is a truly excellent book, celebrating the worst performances by umpires, clubs, and individual players over the three major leagues - with a few anecdotes from minor leagues - over the history of the game. And being a collection of lowlights our beloved Tigers get a few solid mentions. However despite its good intentions, even this book falls short of truly equal coverage. There is a LOT of obvious lowlights from SANFL clubs which have been missed; the SANFL easily gets the least coverage of the three leagues. I do not know why this should be. Perhaps the author was a Sandgroper and thus had little exposure to the SANFL. Still, any chapter which lists the seven dirtiest players of the game and fails to find room for David Granger, let alone any other South Australian (Robbie Muir is one of the 7, but his time at Torrens is condensed to a single sentence!) surely can not be taken seriously.

[spell_check]

Dave Warner would be from WA - it was published there and there's more for WA clubs than there is SA clubs.

Of course there also the 100 Years of Australian Football in that "Chronicle of Australia" style. The title alone suggests the previous 100 years of Australian Football - try the "AFL".

[Leaping Lindner]

......
Second case in point: The Complete Guide to Australian Football by Ken Piesse: An utter misnomer if ever there was one. Alphabetical listing of all V/AFL clubs, and major players in the V/AFL over history. If a South Aussie (or West Aussie, Tassie, etc) is mentioned then it's only in the context of his V/AFL career. The entire SANFL is given a 2 page entry, as was the WAFL. The Queensland League also got an entry, some of the other leagues might also have gotten short entries. Suffice to say the book should have been titled "complete guide to VFL football with a few notes on a handful of other leagues".

.

If IIRC this book published SA's best team since the war and it didn't include Barrie Robran What they meant to say was SA's best team since the war featuring players that had played VFL. Bias, partisan crap that it is.

Geoffrey Blainey's "A Game of our own" is pretty good. Whilst been slanted toward the birth and rise of the game in Victoria it does give good coverage to SA,WA,Tas and even NSW and QLD.

The thing is though we don't even record our own state's footy history well, so who are we to have a go at the Vics. Apart from Bernard Whimpress' superb "South Australian Football Story" name a book that deals with the history(not stats but history) of the SANFL. There is the Pash Papers, but that covers a specific era and deals more with Pash's opinion of players.

When the VFL/AFL turned 100 they released a 384 page book that year by year dealt with the history. They then followed this up with a 395 page book that dealt with the clubs. When the SANFL turned 125 in 2002 we managed a 20 page lift out in the Advertiser of which 6-7 pages was advertising and they "dedicated" 3/4 of a page to the history of each club. Well congratulations on that

You can also chase up club histories or books on most of (if not all of) the original VFL clubs here in Melbourne. How many SANFL clubs currently have a Club history book available??

Rant over.

[godoubleblues]

can confirm that Dave Warner is a Sandgroper
lead singer of his band From the Suburbs in the late 70's/early 80's which had such classics as Suburban Boy and Mugs Game

[MightyEagles]

......
Second case in point: The Complete Guide to Australian Football by Ken Piesse: An utter misnomer if ever there was one. Alphabetical listing of all V/AFL clubs, and major players in the V/AFL over history. If a South Aussie (or West Aussie, Tassie, etc) is mentioned then it's only in the context of his V/AFL career. The entire SANFL is given a 2 page entry, as was the WAFL. The Queensland League also got an entry, some of the other leagues might also have gotten short entries. Suffice to say the book should have been titled "complete guide to VFL football with a few notes on a handful of other leagues".

.

If IIRC this book published SA's best team since the war and it didn't include Barrie Robran What they meant to say was SA's best team since the war featuring players that had played VFL. Bias, partisan crap that it is.

Geoffrey Blainey's "A Game of our own" is pretty good. Whilst been slanted toward the birth and rise of the game in Victoria it does give good coverage to SA,WA,Tas and even NSW and QLD.

The thing is though we don't even record our own state's footy history well, so who are we to have a go at the Vics. Apart from Bernard Whimpress' superb "South Australian Football Story" name a book that deals with the history(not stats but history) of the SANFL. There is the Pash Papers, but that covers a specific era and deals more with Pash's opinion of players.

When the VFL/AFL turned 100 they released a 384 page book that year by year dealt with the history. They then followed this up with a 395 page book that dealt with the clubs. When the SANFL turned 125 in 2002 we managed a 20 page lift out in the Advertiser of which 6-7 pages was advertising and they "dedicated" 3/4 of a page to the history of each club. Well congratulations on that

You can also chase up club histories or books on most of (if not all of) the original VFL clubs here in Melbourne. How many SANFL clubs currently have a Club history book available??

Rant over.

West Torrens has one but on limited edition and as well as Woodville.

[johntheclaret]

I am pretty sure Norwood has one too. JAS could probably confirm that as she is always going on about a book.

Over to you JAS

[godoubleblues]

Sturt have their history book, True Blue, but it is 1996 vintage

[rogernumber10]

Side point - Norwood has two histories, both by Mike Coward. Red and Blue Blooded, written for the centenary in 1978 which is very much club-focused and Men of Norwood, the update written with a focus on key individuals, written in the early 90s.

In terms of history of the game, Sunday this weekend march 9 is the launch and release date of the new book 'The Australian Game of Football, since 1858'.

This was commissioned in 2005 for the 150th year of the game and there is a part serialisation in the Herald Sun this week. Book is a history of Australian football, not victorian football.

Book is 400 odd pages and it covers all of Australia, as that was its key brief. Central theme of the book is that footy has been a staple of australian lifestyle since the game first started.
As debate starters, the 50 best players in the history of the game are rated, along with the top 10 for SA, WA and Tasmania for those guys who basically played their career in just their state and didn't move.
A different writer / journo / historian for each chapter or theme, with likes of gillian Hibbins, Robin Grow, Bernard Whimpress, Trevor Grant, John Harms, Mike Sheahan, Adam Goodes, Ross McMullin, Jake Niall, Nick Bowen, Paul Daffey, Tim Lane, Jim Main writing pieces.

History of footy budgets / records in all states are covered and there is 70 pages detailing the key timeline points from all parts of the country.
For each year in the timeline, they list the teams and finishing order of the major competitions as they established and evolve, VFA, SAFA, WAFA as they become VFL, SAFL, WAFL, SANFL etc, along with the Medallists of each comp in every year of every decade.

Also profiled are five key people of each decade and they cover all of Australia. Len Fitzgerald, Neil Kerley, Barrie Robran, Russell Ebert, Stephen Kernahan are among the post-war ones in that group.

Photography is absolutely outstanding with the chapter on marks having some of the great flys in history, including G Cornes v Norwood in '77 over Michael Gregg and John Clarke.

I'd urge everyone to have a look when it's in the shops from this weekend.

Thus endeth spiel.

[Dogwatcher]

There's also a poster on this site working on a book - it's not about SANFL football but is a very exhaustive listing of every football club in country SA. An amazing amount of research has gone into it.

[johntheclaret]

And a poster on here that has just had a garage sale and I think he said he had a rake of footy books that he didn't get rid of. Try the General Discussion Forum

[PhilH]

Stay tuned for an announcement re the West End 2008 SA Football Media Guide ... within the next 48 hours.

Cheers
Phil

[FlyingHigh]

Perhaps the only post-1990 football book I have encountered which attempts to give equal weight to the SANFL and WAFL is Dave Warner's "Footy's Hall Of Shame". This is a truly excellent book, celebrating the worst performances by umpires, clubs, and individual players over the three major leagues - with a few anecdotes from minor leagues - over the history of the game. And being a collection of lowlights our beloved Tigers get a few solid mentions. However despite its good intentions, even this book falls short of truly equal coverage. There is a LOT of obvious lowlights from SANFL clubs which have been missed; the SANFL easily gets the least coverage of the three leagues. I do not know why this should be. Perhaps the author was a Sandgroper and thus had little exposure to the SANFL. Still, any chapter which lists the seven dirtiest players of the game and fails to find room for David Granger, let alone any other South Australian (Robbie Muir is one of the 7, but his time at Torrens is condensed to a single sentence!) surely can not be taken seriously.

True, it has more WA than SA, but I enjoyed this book, esp as it was released at a time before these internet sites, and I didn't think anyone cared about the WAFL or SANFL anymore, so from that point of view it was enjoyable to read.

Beyond the Big Sticks is a good book on country footy, and covers all over Australia, but not as good as the Bush Legends book just about SA country footy.

Beyond the Boundaries is a fictional book about country footy and country life, but very funny and very realistic. Was released about ten years ago. Has anyone else read it?

[JAS]

I am pretty sure Norwood has one too. JAS could probably confirm that as she is always going on about a book.

Over to you JAS

Side point - Norwood has two histories, both by Mike Coward. Red and Blue Blooded, written for the centenary in 1978 which is very much club-focused and Men of Norwood, the update written with a focus on key individuals, written in the early 90s.

It's 'The Men of Norwood' that I managed to get from a book dealer in SA. Still working my way through it (far too many interruptions ) but a fantastic read...not that I'm biased of course

Regards
JAS