Having pursued the topic further since this article was first published in 1995, I’d modify some of my comments. The issue of what precisely was meant by ‘national’ in Arthur Streeton’s The national game is still to be resolved but there are strong leads. Contrary to what I state below, ‘national’ could mean ‘geographically expansive’; […]
Something strange happened to football on the occasion of the replay of the 2010 AFL Grand Final. With all sponsors, corporate freeloaders and once-a-year ‘opera goers’ sated the previous week, the gates were flung open to the average punter. For the first time in years, a ticket to the Grand Final was within reach of […]
The 2010 AFL Grand Final, contested by Collingwood and St Kilda, ended with a draw and required a rematch the following weekend. ‘The Age’ had commissioned articles from both my wife and me; knowing that we barracked for Collingwood and St Kilda respectively, they were looking for a his and hers story. Among the most […]
Ostensibly, this piece is a reflection on football fans. But really it’s about how I live my life. No Nick Hornby-style meditations; it’s just some stuff that happened. Forget the prognostications of pundits and statisticians, omens are the crux of any football prediction. With the Grand Final looming, they count for more than at any other […]
Each year, Paul Daffey and John Harms publish the best of the year’s contributions to their ‘Footy almanac’ website in a hefty paperback documenting the football season just passed. They invite an artist to produce an image of the season’s iconic player for the cover. In 2010, John Harms asked me to write on Geoff […]
The arts editor of The Age called me a few days before the 2008 Grand Final wondering if I could string together something about art and sport. Just happened to have something lying around! Earlier in the year I’d been working through André Gide’s diaries; here was a chance to use his oddly gleeful discovery […]