AFL Books

[kangaspurs]

I know a bloke who did book reports on Specky McGee in high school. Fair to say he wasn't the sharpest.

 

[Horace]

any good books on fitzroy and the merger.

Dyson Hore-Lacey's book is the one to read if you are interested goalieboy82. Refer to my post above. Adam Muyt's book is also very interesting as it explores the different emotions of old Fitzroy suuporters.

Here are links.

http://www.blaqbooks.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2265

http://www.vulgar.com.au/muyt.html

 

[RobZombie]

Looks like Sav Rocca but can't remember too much glove work from Sav

Looks like McCartney with the glove.

 

[SunnyBoner]

Fred Cook's recent book is worth a read for those of us who grew up in the '80. He was a rock star back in the day and mixed with some very colourful characters.

 

[D23D]

Football LTD - the inside story of australian rules (A run down of the AFL and how it became a national game, with emphasis on the shady dealings and outright lies and rip offs that went on in the '80s and '90s. Essential.)

Tom Wills - first wild man of australian sport (how the game began. For the historian)

The Coach

Sacked Coach

Origin of the Speccies: The Players & Positions of AFL - Hilarious romp through the formal positions on the Australian Football field and some of the "personalities" who have made it their own

The Hafey Years

Playing God - the rise and fall of Gary Ablett

Saturday Afternoon Fever by Matthew Hardy - excellent and funny book from a saints fans perspective about growing up around the suburban grounds in melbourne

Football grounds of melbourne - by santo caruso (used to own a sports book shop on flinders st) good as a reference

And of course The North Story - 1, it is awesome and 2, probably the only publication to ever feature my name in it! (there was a fund raiser in around 1995, if you paid $30, you got your name in the book. Done

 

[NM_Mitchell]

back in the good old days with gws or gold coast

 

[D23D]

Dyson Hore-Lacey's book is the one to read if you are interested goalieboy82. Refer to my post above. Adam Muyt's book is also very interesting as it explores the different emotions of old Fitzroy suuporters.

Here are links.

http://www.blaqbooks.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2265

http://www.vulgar.com.au/muyt.html

Excellent thanks Horace, I'm buying it

 

[TwentyNine]

Too many to name of course but the most recent I've read is Lenny Hayes biography, very good reading.

 

[GoNorth]

I have The Coach as well as both the original and updated versions of The North Story.

 

[Hojuman]

The Coach. There will never be a better

No doubt there. Still got original copy.

 

[RobZombie]

The books out of the Harms/Daffey stable tend to be good: Loose Men Everywhere, Footy Town, and of course the Almanac every year.

The Coach is one of the best sports books, let alone footy books, even without North bias, and I'll add a vote for Matthew Hardy's Saturday Afternoon Fever.

Brother Boys is on my to-read list; I've heard nothing but good things about it.

 

[Donkey Chop]

I haven't read it but apparently The Changi Brownlow is a good read

 

[Hojuman]

" THE COACH " had it all as far as drama was concerned. Terrible performance in '76 grand final. Great win rd. 1 against the same team. Reasonable season. Season ending injury to dual brownlow captain. Shocking first finals game. Redemption prelim. Then drawn grand final. Complete performance the week after. Could have actually scored 30 goals if we kicked straight. What we kick ? 21.24 ?
Book would hardly have sold had we finished 7th.

p.s." Boots and all " by Lou Richards written early '60's l think. One of the first by a player.

 

[Twinkletoes]

The Dean Laidley story will be an interesting, albeit difficult read one day.

 

[Marstermind]

The best...The Coach by John Powers. How lucky did that guy get? Getting behind the scenes for such an amazing season. Beautifully written capturing Barassi's temperament and the players' willingness to go into battle for him. I don't think Powers was actually much of a footy fan but that actually helps the book by avoiding any 'fanboy' gushing over events. I think I read somewhere that initially Barassi didn't want to do it, then enjoyed having Powers around the club, but then was disappointed with the book - he thought it would be more about the club and team and less about him. But over time he has come to appreciate what a fine book it was.

Second best...Sacked Coach by Stan Alves. Awful title because the book is so much more than that. Obviously it goes into Alves' Melbourne days joining the best team in the league at the wrong time as it began its demise but being among the best players, his success at North and his rise and fall as the Saints coach. Outside of footy, Alves has been to hell with the tragic death of his son, but his refusal to hate life and his embracement of the positive is truly inspiring.

The most disappointing...The North Story by Fr Gerard Dowling. I should have loved this book but I found it so unengaging. I don't even think I finished it. Maybe it was me but I thought it got mired for long sections going into too much detail over off-field events which didn't seem all that important. When it got to the greatest moment in the club's history - The 1975 Grand Final - the chapter was written as a play-by-play retelling of the entire match (ie. Burns picked up a loose ball, evaded a tackle from Rowlings and threw the ball onto his boot. The ball sailed towards the half-forward flank where Feltham and Bremner contested but it bounced in front of them and trickled out of bounds. The boundary umpire threw it in and......for the entire match!!!) I was really disappointed and wish a better book could be written. The best club history book I have read was St.Kilda's The Point Of It All by Russell Holmesby.

 

[D23D]

The best...The Coach by John Powers. How lucky did that guy get? Getting behind the scenes for such an amazing season. Beautifully written capturing Barassi's temperament and the players' willingness to go into battle for him. I don't think Powers was actually much of a footy fan but that actually helps the book by avoiding any 'fanboy' gushing over events. I think I read somewhere that initially Barassi didn't want to do it, then enjoyed having Powers around the club, but then was disappointed with the book - he thought it would be more about the club and team and less about him. But over time he has come to appreciate what a fine book it was.

Second best...Sacked Coach by Stan Alves. Awful title because the book is so much more than that. Obviously it goes into Alves' Melbourne days joining the best team in the league at the wrong time as it began its demise but being among the best players, his success at North and his rise and fall as the Saints coach. Outside of footy, Alves has been to hell with the tragic death of his son, but his refusal to hate life and his embracement of the positive is truly inspiring.

The most disappointing...The North Story by Fr Gerard Dowling. I should have loved this book but I found it so unengaging. I don't even think I finished it. Maybe it was me but I thought it got mired for long sections going into too much detail over off-field events which didn't seem all that important. When it got to the greatest moment in the club's history - The 1975 Grand Final - the chapter was written as a play-by-play retelling of the entire match (ie. Burns picked up a loose ball, evaded a tackle from Rowlings and threw the ball onto his boot. The ball sailed towards the half-forward flank where Feltham and Bremner contested but it bounced in front of them and trickled out of bounds. The boundary umpire threw it in and......for the entire match!!!) I was really disappointed and wish a better book could be written. The best club history book I have read was St.Kilda's The Point Of It All by Russell Holmesby.

Master, the first edition of the north story was pre beta, vhs and dvd days so the 75 GF chapter did have some importance I reckon - although I agree with you and in actual fact I couldn't read it, I didn't need to, I owned the 75 GF vhs by the time I bought the north story so I just watched it instead.
But I think the play by play was there in the first to bring the game to life for the reader. So the North story (if you can rate it from its first publishing) is still a book for the fan IMHO

Cheers, Adam

 

[Marstermind]

Master, the first edition of the north story was pre beta, vhs and dvd days so the 75 GF chapter did have some importance I reckon - although I agree with you and in actual fact I couldn't read it, I didn't need to, I owned the 75 GF vhs by the time I bought the north story so I just watched it instead.
But I think the play by play was there in the first to bring the game to life for the reader. So the North story (if you can rate it from its first publishing) is still a book for the fan IMHO

Cheers, Adam

Maybe, but commentary doesn't translate into writing and never has. If that was the intention, it failed badly. If the goal was the bring the game to life then quotes from players/coaches/fans about how they felt at various stages of the game may have worked better. However, only my opinion, but I remember the book to be quite poor overall and hope a better version is written one day.

 

[BlueRoos]

The best...The Coach by John Powers. How lucky did that guy get? Getting behind the scenes for such an amazing season. Beautifully written capturing Barassi's temperament and the players' willingness to go into battle for him. I don't think Powers was actually much of a footy fan but that actually helps the book by avoiding any 'fanboy' gushing over events. I think I read somewhere that initially Barassi didn't want to do it, then enjoyed having Powers around the club, but then was disappointed with the book - he thought it would be more about the club and team and less about him. But over time he has come to appreciate what a fine book it was.

Completely agree with you MM, The Coach is a cracking read. For someone who just started following the club after that, it provided a great illumination of what went on behind the scenes. Could not recommend it enough.

 

[Passmore]

The best...The Coach by John Powers. How lucky did that guy get? Getting behind the scenes for such an amazing season. Beautifully written capturing Barassi's temperament and the players' willingness to go into battle for him. I don't think Powers was actually much of a footy fan but that actually helps the book by avoiding any 'fanboy' gushing over events. I think I read somewhere that initially Barassi didn't want to do it, then enjoyed having Powers around the club, but then was disappointed with the book - he thought it would be more about the club and team and less about him. But over time he has come to appreciate what a fine book it was.

Second best...Sacked Coach by Stan Alves. Awful title because the book is so much more than that. Obviously it goes into Alves' Melbourne days joining the best team in the league at the wrong time as it began its demise but being among the best players, his success at North and his rise and fall as the Saints coach. Outside of footy, Alves has been to hell with the tragic death of his son, but his refusal to hate life and his embracement of the positive is truly inspiring.

The most disappointing...The North Story by Fr Gerard Dowling. I should have loved this book but I found it so unengaging. I don't even think I finished it. Maybe it was me but I thought it got mired for long sections going into too much detail over off-field events which didn't seem all that important. When it got to the greatest moment in the club's history - The 1975 Grand Final - the chapter was written as a play-by-play retelling of the entire match (ie. Burns picked up a loose ball, evaded a tackle from Rowlings and threw the ball onto his boot. The ball sailed towards the half-forward flank where Feltham and Bremner contested but it bounced in front of them and trickled out of bounds. The boundary umpire threw it in and......for the entire match!!!) I was really disappointed and wish a better book could be written. The best club history book I have read was St.Kilda's The Point Of It All by Russell Holmesby.

I'd have to agree with your thoughts on The North Story. Given it's about NMFC, it's hardly bad, and I'm sure that Father did his best, however it could have been so much better.

 

[Passmore]

No doubt there. Still got original copy.

I reckon I dust my copy off every three years and have a read. Never gets old.

 

[marklovesbeer]

I don't read a lot but if I do it's usually a biography or autobiography.

Just started Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre by Mick Wall. Have read a few books on my favourite band The Doors, so I'm interested to see this take, considering it revolves around the alternative/controversial view that Jim Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in a Parisian night club toilet.

Anyway, just looking through the book section at a second hand store & found these two side by side for $3 each.
Had to grab them as they're the two best sports books I've read & after lending them both out numerous times over the last few years I have no idea where they've ended up. Need to have them on the shelf. Will give The Truth Hurts another spin once I've smashed through this Doors book.



Edit: aaaannddd... I realise drunk Mark has already posted in this thread re; the David Schwarz book.

 

[coopers pale]

Brother boys probably my favourite, I also liked the book on the draft (the one with Vespremi etc) by Emma Quayle.

 

[goalieboy82]

The Dean Laidley story will be an interesting, albeit difficult read one day.

in the beginning God created North Melbourne. Let there be a Flag winning team for them he said. and everything was good.

 

[see see]

I agree re The Coach, absolute ripper of a read.

I have a copy of The North Story, signed by most of the [year between 1997 and 1999 that shall remain unspoken] list, including TWICE by Carey.

 

[jimandphilbadge]

Reckon the top right is Grant.

I had a guess before reading what you guys guessed and I thought top right was Leigh Brown.