MICHAEL SEXTON Stories for Harry & Ray. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
In Stories for Harry & Ray, Michael Sexton brings together 43 of his essays on sport. The result is a small gem. Fellow Adelaide sportswriter Michael Sexton has a number of impressive books to his name – 1964: A Season, A Game, A State; Chappell’s Last Stand;...
EDDIE BETTS The Boy From Boomerang Crescent. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
Footy star Eddie Betts recounts the highs and lows of his career and what it means to be a Blackfulla. There is a genre of sports writing known as the ‘Glory Book’, where a former player waxes lyrical about wonderful moments he experienced on the playing field, either...
MATTHEW NICHOLSON, BOB STEWART, GREG de MOORE and ROB HESS Australia’s Game: The History of Australian Football. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
As a single-volume history of the growth and development of Australian football, Australia’s Game has much to recommend it. When a book consists of 784 pages and 54 chapters, it’s a big book. But when it also contains 2517 endnotes and has a bibliography that includes...
MICHAEL WARNER The Boys’ Club: Power, politics and the AFL. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
Michael Warner doesn’t hold back in this examination of the scandals that have beset the AFL over the past two decades. In professional sport teams compete not only with each other on the field, but also off the field for fans, sponsors and players. Despite this...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on AFL at the crossroads
There is talk of the AFL making changes to the rules of Australian football to make it a more interesting and watchable game. Something such is sorely needed. Attendances are down and many people, including players, confess to turning off the television coverage. In...
JAMES COVENTRY Footballistics: How the data analysis revolution is uncovering footy’s hidden truths; PETER NEWLINDS with DAVID BREWSTER Around the Grounds: Magic moments from the life of a sports broadcaster. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Sport can be examined from many angles. The first of these books takes a single sport and the second a single life as its subject. I might be the worst person to review Footballistics since I decry the over-quantification of the game. If I’m allowed to wear...
MATT WATSON Fabulous Phil: The Phil Carman Story. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
A rivetingly flawed biography of one of the most talented Australian Rules footballers to ever pull on a boot. Let’s begin with the flaws. This is a book with 55 chapters and books with so many chapters usually see me casting them aside – they’re just too bitty. It...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on an unusual season
I finished 44th out of 114 players in my AFL tipping competition. A mediocre result and well below my personal best. The winner of the competition averaged slightly under six correct tips per round, well down on previous winning scores. It was an unusual season, with...
The Godfather: Peter Corris rounds up the 2016 AFL season
See the Bombers fly up, up … (Essendon Football Club song) It may seem perverse to begin a comment on the past season with a reference to the team that finished on the bottom of the ladder but, when you have supported a team for 69 years as I have Essendon, it remains...
PAUL MCCARTHY First Use of the Ball: Celebrating football in Kapunda since 1866. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
With beautiful design and sparkling text, this book is an ideal example of a club history. When I first heard of the Kapunda Football Club celebrating 150 years of its history my private response was, ‘Oh, no.’ For two reasons. First, sporting clubs are...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on the 2016 AFL season, so far …
At a touch over 50 games into the 2016 season (I am writing just before the bounce of the ball to begin round 7), the AFL competition this year bids fair to be more interesting than in recent times. For the last three years it has been pretty much a matter of which...
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