Almanac Book Reviews: ‘Green and Golden Boots: Australia’s Overseas Golden Boot Winners’ – Jason Goldsmith

Jason Goldsmith, Green and Golden Boots: Australia’s Overseas Golden Boot Winners, Fairplay Publishing, Balgowlah Heights, New South Wales, 2023, $21.99, ISBN 9781925914771.

 

Review by: Roy Hay

 

Jason Goldsmith is one of Australia’s most refreshing authors of books on the World Game. In 2019 he published Surfing for England about the brilliant young Australian soccer players who used their dual heritage or other connections to become stars internationally for or in other countries. Or who were not recognised as they should have been in Australia. He combined with Lucas Gillard to compile Be My Guest an account of some of the overseas superstars who spent brief periods playing in Australia. Now he has turned his sharp intelligence to another unique group of players who became the top scorers in a range of overseas leagues including the magnificent Sam Kerr, Mark Viduka, the pioneering Edi Krncevic and the enigmatic Scott McDonald who never managed a goal for the Socceroos but could not stop scoring at the highest level in European competition with Celtic in Scotland.

 

Goldsmith’s latest book, Green and Golden Boots focuses on the seasons when the Australian players became the top scorers in their overseas league, the Golden Boot winners in their respective competition. But there is much more about their back story and their subsequent careers. This enables the reader to distil some common elements in the experience of these stars and also their unique qualities. He does not gloss over the struggles these players had along the way and the various ways in which these were overcome.

 

The Victorian launch of the book will be at the Co-conspirators Brewpub, 377 Victoria Street, Brunswick on Wednesday 15 November at 7 pm.

 

More from Roy Hay can be read Here

 

 

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