Des Tobin has sent us a few words about his new book…
It’s in the Genes – Australian Football Families
This is a book about football dynasties and coming from a family dynasty with a football background, I think I am well placed to have written it. My late father Phonse Tobin, was a long-serving North Melbourne Football Club and VFL official and a co-founder of Tobin Brothers Funerals, one of Australia’s most respected family-owned funeral service companies. I was a North Melbourne player (with a less than modest career) in the mid-1950s and Tobin Brothers CEO from 1982 – 1998. This is my seventh book and looking back, I think I can say I have crammed more lives into my 86 years than your average cat. I have variously been a failed student, a discontented apprentice panel beater, a youth worker, a springboard diver, a junior pole-vaulter, a VFL, QANFL and Olympic Australian Rules footballer, a 10-pin bowling instructor, a successful business executive, a golfing tragic, a university lecturer and a relatively prolific writer.
It’s in the Genes is the result of four years of extensive research, scores of face-to-face and telephone interviews and countless hours in front of my laptop. The book tells the stories of some of the many families who have produced senior VFA/VFL/AFL/AFLW footballers stretching back to the late nineteenth century. If you dip into the book, you will recognise many famous families (and some not so famous).
These families include the Rankin/O’Donnell dynasty that has produced five generations of players across three centuries; the Pannam/Richards and Cordner clans with similar numbers; the great Laurie Nash and his father Bob – the first father and son to captain VFL clubs; the Western Bulldogs Ted, Don and Ted (Junior) Whitten and many more. The magicians from the Tiwi Islands – the Riolis and Longs – are also included, and a chapter on Ron Barassi (Senior and Junior) considers the story of a ‘fallen father’ and an ‘immortal son’ from an unusual and slightly different perspective.
But this book is more than stories of shirtfronts, high marks and the smell of liniment and testosterone-charged dressing rooms. It’s also about the dedication of football doctors Ted (Senior and Junior) and Donald Cordner, who played football as amateurs and always put the welfare of their patients ahead of their football ambitions. It’s about the former Collingwood and Richmond champion of the 1920s Charlie Pannam (Junior) who, on retirement from football, bought a small general store in outer suburban Vermont where he became an avuncular community figure who even paid for junior footballers’ boots and uniforms during the Great Depression when their parents could not. It’s about three generations of Riolis – legendary footballers in four states and territories – and their championing for the rights of First Nations peoples. It’s about the likes of Haydn Bunton (Senior) and Jack ‘Captain Blood’ Dyer both of whom were to develop special relationships with down-and-out teammates and homeless blokes they had come to know. And it’s about how football has been an irreplaceable activity that has uplifted and bound communities together during good times and bad….and so much more.
It’s in the Genes also reveals a number of little known (or previously untold) stories including:
How the Victorian Governor was kept waiting at the gates of St Patrick’s Cathedral at Ted Whitten’s State funeral because Ted’s brother Don had to make a ‘pit stop’ along the way (Page 262)
How an 85kg Maurice Rioli bloodied the 95kg, 6 feet, 4 Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson’s nose in a spar at South Fremantle in the late 1970s (Page 356)
How VFL Team Manager Phonse Tobin threatened to ‘drop’ Ted Whitten and Ron Barassi from the Victorian team in a scheduled match against SA in Adelaide after the boys (following a night ‘on the tiles’) returned to the team Hotel well past Phonse’s ‘curfew’ time. (Page 455)
How Jimmy Connors rewarded ball boy Tony Beers (son of Collingwood star Brian Beers and a future Collingwood and Claremont player) after winning the 1974 Australian Open. (Page 221)
How Haydn Bunton (Junior) encountered the eccentric athletics coach Percy Cerutty on the beach at Portsea in 1960 and later was embarrassed when Cerutty talked his way into the South Australian dressing rooms before a match against Victoria at the MCG and uninvited, jumped on to a massage table and gave the boys a pre-match ‘pep’ talk. (P192)
I believe this to be a book of significance. It is available in bookshops nationally and online at destobin.com.au
Phone: 0417 510 211
Email: [email protected]
Invitation
Des will be speaking at a Geelong Cats Historic Society function at Kardinia Park on Wednesday, 6 November. This year is the Centenary of the inaugural Brownlow Medal that was, of course, won by Geelong’s ‘Carji’ Greeves and GCHS is holding a function to commemorate that event. Col Hutchinson has kindly offered me the opportunity to speak about my book and to highlight the several Geelong family groups (Rankin, McShane, Ablett et al) that form part of the overall story. All welcome. If you wish to attend the event, which is open to the public, and starts with morning tea around 10:00 AM, please book by emailing Col Hutchinson. [email protected]
Order Online: destobin.com.au or enquire at your local bookshop
Melbourne-based author Des Tobin, has crammed more lives into his 86 years than your average cat. He has variously been a failed student, a discontented apprentice panelbeater, a youth worker, a springboard diver, a junior pole-vaulter, a VFL, QANFL and Olympic Australian Rules footballer, a 10-pin bowling instructor, a successful business executive, a golfing tragic, a university lecturer and a prolific writer. IT’S IN THE GENES is his seventh book. An entertaining public speaker and storyteller, Des Tobin is available for media interviews, speaking engagements and bookshop appearances by arrangement.
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