Almanac Book Review – The Women’s Footy Almanac 2018: Bobby’s banter is good for footy

 

By Grace Kerwin (14 years)

 

I first heard of Bobby Macumber through a parody music video she produced with my favourite cricket team, the Melbourne Renegades women. So when I noticed her name attached to the Women’s Footy Almanac 2018, I flicked straight to her pieces talking about her beloved AFLW Bulldogs and the competition in general.

 

Bobby’s big, bubbly personality, which I also witnessed when she worked as an announcer at a Renegades women’s match at Camberwell earlier this year, comes through as clearly on the page as it does on the microphone. She writes not only about the matches themselves in this book, the second produced to chart the progress of the AFLW, but about the colour and entertainment around the games.

 

For instance, she talks about watching her Bulldogs play Adelaide in Adelaide, when only a handful of supporters were backing the ’Dogs, and how difficult it was to get something to eat, and a beer. She was thrilled by the local crowd that turned out to watch women’s football, but called for home game fans in future to bring a packed lunch – “I’m from interstate, I can’t pack a lunch”.

 

Then there was the match replay Bobby and a friend were watching, when they experienced technical difficulties and had to watch the third quarter four times, and she found herself screaming “Ball!” and other fan-speak at the same point every time.

 

She can laugh at herself too; she compares Collingwood’s Meg Hutchins to a fine wine, but says she is more like “a stubby of Carlton Draught that was good ten years ago (maybe), but is now warm, flat and out of date”.

 

Bobby’s turn of phrase is something fresh when it comes to footy reviews, such as when she says Moana Hope “was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress in the second quarter” of the ’Pies’ match against the Bulldogs; bills the Adelaide-Bulldogs game as The Erin Phillips Show, the first performance in the Adelaide Fringe Festival; catches herself using clichéd sporting terms like ‘credit to’, and upgrades it to “good bloody effort”; or launches into a spiel about the Bulldogs’ Libby Birch that starts in calling her Birch and ends in naming her Bircher Muesli.

 

It’s fresh, but also the kind of talk and banter every footy fan is familiar with, and it’s great to see it being associated with women’s footy, so that people still unsure about the whole concept can see it’s not so different from the game they know, after all.

 

Bobby Macumber is just one of the contributors to The Women’s Footy Almanac 2018. The book, now available via footyalmanac.com.au, is an account of this year’s AFLW season, with writers telling the story of each game, while addressing issues which emerged during the year.

 

AVAILABLE NOW!

Purchase:

The Women’s Footy Almanac 2018
HERE

Comments

  1. You Hills really can write! Grace, I can see the influence of Mum Simone and Grandad KB. Thanks for your very warm review. Bobby will get a buzz too.

    JTH

  2. Awww Grace… this review is bloody awesome, thanks buddy! Hope to catch you at the next Renegades WBBL match this season.

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