Sports and Pastimes
Book Details

More Than a Game

The Real Story of Australian Rules Football

Rob Hess and Bob Stewart (eds)

Foreword by Martin Flanagan

An oppositional and unauthorised history of ‘The Great Aussie Game’—a book for all Australian football scholars and fans.

Opinion

‘A tremendous read.’ (Footyzine, Winter 1998)

‘What More Than A Game does offer is an engaging social history. It’s all here—club mergers, ground invasions, the poaching of players, under-the-counter payments, disputes with councils and cricket clubs over access to ovals, breakaway politicking by the strongest clubs, relentless dreams of interstate and even international expansion—and that’s all before the Victorian Football League even gets off the ground in 1897.’ (Stephanie Holt, Overland, 1999)

About this Title

Australian Rules football is more than a game—it is a way of life for players, club officials, league administrators and, above all, for its millions of loyal fans around the country.

Footy fever and footy talk are an essential part of Australian life. Since its beginnings in Melbourne in the 1850s, as an amateur sport played among the gum trees, it has developed into a dazzling, fast-moving, high-scoring spectacle and a sophisticated national enterprise.

This intriguing account of Australian footy explores:
Ž the behind-the-scenes struggles for control of the game
Ž the friction sparked by the rise of professionalism
Ž the battles between clubs, players and administrators for a share of the takings
Ž the unique role and influence of female spectators in the history of the game
Ž the spread of the code to ‘foreign territory’ including New South Wales and New Zealand
Ž the campaigns by Melbourne’s fiercely loyal football tribes to defend their clubs against mergers, relocations and the introduction of a national competition.

Introduced by top Age sportswriter and columnist Martin Flanagan, this book tells the true story of Australian Rules football.

About the Author

Bob Stewart co-ordinates the sport administration programme at Victoria University of Technology and has written extensively on the commercial development of sport in Australia.

Rob Hess is a lecturer in sports history at the Victoria University of Technology, is completing his doctorate on the development of Australian Rules football at the turn of the century.

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978-0-522-84772-7