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becsti's review against another edition
5.0
★★★★★ | 5 Stars
This was a fun, diverse celebration of Aussie Rules football. There was a good mix of funny, positive, poignant and eye-opening pieces in this collection. Honourable mentions to 'marngrook' by Maxine Beneba Clarke and 'Play the Ball, Not the Man...' by Rebecca Lim.
This was a fun, diverse celebration of Aussie Rules football. There was a good mix of funny, positive, poignant and eye-opening pieces in this collection. Honourable mentions to 'marngrook' by Maxine Beneba Clarke and 'Play the Ball, Not the Man...' by Rebecca Lim.
gabaldassarre's review against another edition
4.0
4.5/5, maybe. I really liked this - like the name suggests it looks at football from those who you might think are on the fringes of fandom: women, literary types, LGBT fans, Indigenous fans, Sydneysiders. It was interesting to read what drew these people to the game and what they found in it and how it has changed for them over the years, but also in some cases what makes them question their devotion. Erin Riley in particular writing that she doesn't know how long she can keep her fandom going for a sport that doesn't give all that much about her as a woman resonated.
wtb_michael's review
3.0
Unsurprisingly, this is a pretty patchy collection - there are lovely pieces by Anna Spargo-Ryan, Sophie Cunningham, Tony Birch and more, but I found myself struggling through a decent chunk of this book too. Part of the problem is my below-average enthusiasm for AFL itself, but there were also some pieces that were more just not terribly engaging. It's lovely that this colleciton exists, and there are wonderful moments in here, but different pieces are inevitably going to resonate more or less with different readers.
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