What’s in this year’s Footy Almanac

What’s in this year’s Footy Almanac

 

Apart from all of the wonderfully diverse match reports written from all over Australia (and around the world) it features:

Forewords

Tony Birch – on Adam Goodes. Tony is the second writer with The Footy Almanac’s to be short-listed for the Miles Franklin and this is a delightful celebration of one of the competition’s most loved players. (Craig Silvey – 2008 edition – has also been short-listed).

Brian Matthews – on following footy in South Australia and his recent return to Victoria. You will know (Prof) Brian’s works of memoir, biography (including a biography of the MCG The Temple Down the Road) and collections of columns. He’s a mad Sainter.

Dave Warner – who has completed our annual muso’s take on footy Dave is a musician, writer, observer and commentator and this is a delightful essay of footy in Perth and then his new love: the Sydney Swans.

Rod Gillett – returns to the 50th anniversary celebrations of footy in Armidale.  A delightful piece of reminiscence and a look at the place of footy in New South Wales.

Stephanie Holt – on having a year away from Melbourne (in the USA).  Steph contemplates the game’s significance in a subtle dig at football’s marketers.

JTH – the Season Review. Just a few words on a season which kept so many fans alive to the prospect of success for so long.

 

Grand Final pieces:

John Donegan who travels down the Hume (with two of his kids) from Sydney to the MCG in a world which is at once Old South and New Sydney. This is one especially for Swans fans, that all footy fans will appreciate.

Dave Goodwin, a (then) miserable and disappointed Hawks fans lamenting the Josh Kennedy situation (among other things) in verse (with apologies to Banjo and a christening).

Peter Flynn on the squirt for the B and F count of the North London Lions which coincides with the pre-dawn Grand Final coverage in the antipodes. (Just read it)

JTH – on the game.

 

To buy The Footy Almanac click here

 

 

Comments

  1. Dear Editor,
    The quality and quantity of the introductory pieces in both the AFL and NRL Almanacs appear outstanding. I await my copies with baited breath.
    However I note what appears to be a distinct change in editorial policy regarding Grand Finals in this year’s Almanacs. In the past I thought there were 2 partisan correspondents from each side. Both books this year appear to have enlisted 1 partisan supporter of each side; 1 impartial observer and a dipsomaniac for the ‘beer goggles’ view of the game.
    Are my observations correct and will this be an ongoing editorial policy.
    Regards,
    Concerned Salvationist of Salmon Gums

  2. John Harms says

    The Hawthorn FC decreed that no fan was to mention the Grand Final ever again. Dave Goodwin, living in Singapore, missed that edict.

    Space was also an issue as you will see. As it was, we received many pieces at 900+ words. These were trimmed, except where longer pieces were commissioned for key games and games where other matters were discussed within the text eg Black Caviar, Olympic Games, the state of Richmond, first GWS match. There are two new clubs and that makes for 22 more games.

    May be some changes in approach for next year. More discussion of that in February.

  3. Dave Goodwin says

    I must confess that when I read CSSG’s comment I ran first to a dictionary to determine the meaning of “dipsomaniac” then to my piece to check for alco faux pas. Bottom line: henceforth one of our GF co-writers may be at risk of acquiring the moniker “Dipso”.

  4. Last year I went to Salmon Gums looking for the scoreboard. There isn’t one. The old footy ground is overgrown and the building there is the home of the shooting club.

  5. Dipsomaniac: (noun) Obsessive follower of diminutive Cats supporting accountants. Dipsomaniacs are endangered species close to extinction. Known to inhabit North London bars at Grand Final time, or travel south from Brisbane in September in search of cheap beer and easy prey.
    As they are a feral pest, we in Salmon Gums are determined to stop them at the borders to protect the pristine West Australian floribunda.
    All Almanackers are invited over to Salmon Gums next Spring when the Everlastings and the Eagles are in full bloom.

  6. Peter B – I hope you’re not confusing me with one P Flynn!

    I’m not really an accountant. Its all a front. I’m actually a mad scientist.

  7. Phantom, Flynn, Harms, Dips, Mark Doyle………….
    These Cats obsessives all blur into one another. That’s why it’s called the Catmanac.

  8. Geelong ration is the same as everyone else’s. Sydney gets a good run though as you would expect.

    It’s all footy and life.

  9. Mark Doyle says

    Peter B, This website might be Geelong obsessive, but is it any more obsessive and biased than the monosyllabic/pictorial Melbourne Herald-Sun trivial and celebrity nonsense coverage of AFL footy for the ferals in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, or the Geelong media bias of the Geelong Addy newspaper and K-Rock radio or the Western Australian newspaper or the pretentious upper middle wankers at the ABC and the Age newspaper.
    On another subject and as you are a Western Australian, I am wondering about the upcoming marron season. I was recently in Cambodia and fishing on the Mekong river and caught a freshwater crayfish, which looked and tasted a bit like a marron, but was about the size of a big yabby. I thought that the marron was indigenous to Western Australia.

  10. Mark/John etc

    1. You must take into account that PeterB is a WC Evil fan living in Perth. Therefore he thinks any story that’s not about NicNat or Coxie or Kerrie(y) or Wooooosh is biased.

    2. I caught some marron in Collie on the night Winston Churchill’s death was announced… 24 January 1965. We cooked them up at my cousin’s place and ate them with salt and vinegar. Marron are indigenous to WA.

  11. So Dave Warner is one of the writers involved in this years Almanac. His most famous football tune was ‘ half time at the football’ , which to my knowledge never made it to public release. It was on a bootleg tape, and was a live favourite, and what I would give for the AFL to have Dave perform this song during half time in the 2013 Grand Final, but i won’t hold my breath.

    Glen!

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