In need of a footy book fix I bought a copy of "The ox is slow but the earth is patient", an account of Collingwood under Mick Malthouse, written by Malthouse and his fitness guru David Buttifant.
I bought the book with high hopes of a biographical account of Malthouse and his time at Collingwood, his triumphs and disappointments. I was hoping to get some insight into the Malthouse gameplan, and his thoughts on football. I had heard this book was coming out and I managed to acquire a large print copy through Amazon.com, but there were no book reviews, alas for me.
I was disappointed. I confess I have abandoned this book half way through. The first half of the book is an incoherent sort of self-help book with a football theme. Collingwood personalities flitter through the pages, so we have, for example, a passage from Nick Maxwell on the importance of work/life balance. One of the very frustrating parts of this book for me is that the 'voice' of the author is unclear so as a reader I felt unsure if Malthouse or Buttifant is the author of any particular passage, and in other places I felt that there was a 'narrator' writing about both men.
This book has lots of things about Buttifant's philosphy of personal training; he's all for altitude training, there's lots of 'leadership' passages, and there are a lot of anecdotes about Collingwood players and coaches being on long marches up and down the Grand Canyon and other locations.
But for me "the ox is incoherent" and I would not recommend this book to the general football fan.
I bought the book with high hopes of a biographical account of Malthouse and his time at Collingwood, his triumphs and disappointments. I was hoping to get some insight into the Malthouse gameplan, and his thoughts on football. I had heard this book was coming out and I managed to acquire a large print copy through Amazon.com, but there were no book reviews, alas for me.
I was disappointed. I confess I have abandoned this book half way through. The first half of the book is an incoherent sort of self-help book with a football theme. Collingwood personalities flitter through the pages, so we have, for example, a passage from Nick Maxwell on the importance of work/life balance. One of the very frustrating parts of this book for me is that the 'voice' of the author is unclear so as a reader I felt unsure if Malthouse or Buttifant is the author of any particular passage, and in other places I felt that there was a 'narrator' writing about both men.
This book has lots of things about Buttifant's philosphy of personal training; he's all for altitude training, there's lots of 'leadership' passages, and there are a lot of anecdotes about Collingwood players and coaches being on long marches up and down the Grand Canyon and other locations.
But for me "the ox is incoherent" and I would not recommend this book to the general football fan.
