The Greatest Team of All is your definitive, blow-by-blow account of the Geelong Football Club team's rise to win the AFL 2022 Premiership. Revealing, insightful and action-packed, this book will take you through the 2022 season round-by round with award-winning AFL correspondent and Geelong insider Scott Gullan. After 11 years, a flurry of false starts, and naysayers at every turn, the Cats' ascension to the top of the ladder and into finals was no easy task. With the grit, talent and aggression that a true Grand Final challenger needed, the Cats, led by record-breaking captain Joel Selwood, would not only need to battle through one of the most challenging and competitive finals series the game has seen in a very long time, but also turn the tide of public opinion that the team was too old and too slow. But with thirteen wins on the trot as they entered finals, they would emerge as the team to beat. Relive the lows to highs of this incredible AFL season to Grand Final victory with The Greatest Team of All,an official AFL book.

The perfect golf gag gift, funny golf prank, or book for any golfer who always has an excuse for their wayward shots on the tee box There's nothing better than a perfect day on the course, except for maybe the excuses thrown around for a sliced drive or a missed putt. As soon as you shot goes askew... You can blame your job... You can blame the course... You can blame mother nature... Or you can blame your equipment... But Never, Ever, BLAME YOURSELF! The perfect golf gift for men who always have the perfect excuse for their golf misfortunes, 501 Excuses for a Bad Golf Shot is the ideal father's day gift, gag gift, or present for that friend in your golf league whose excuses are always a hole-in-one (even when their shots aren't).

Created especially for the Australian customer

Facts, tips and stats for players, spectators and coaches

Fully updated with all the latest rule changes and including expanded skills, coaching and training chapters, "Aussie Rules For Dummies," 2nd Edition takes you from getting a grip on the basics to more advanced aspects of playing, watching and coaching Australia's national game. Packed with practical information and fascinating anecdotes, this is the simplest, clearest and most detailed guide to AFL available.

Discover how to: Understand positions, umpires and scoringGear up correctly, and avoid and treat injuriesImprove your playing skills and coach effectivelyAppreciate the clubs, competitions and awards

This book is the outcome of an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded project titled Assessing the Australian Football League's Racial and Religious Vilification Laws to Promote Community Harmony, Multiculturalism and Reconciliation, which investigated the impact of the Australian Football League's anti-vilification policy since its introduction in 1995. With key stakeholders the Australian Football League, the AFL Players' Association and the Office of Multicultural Affairs (previously the Victorian Multicultural Commission), the book gauges the attitudes and perspectives of players and coaches in the AFL regarding Rule 35, the code's anti-vilification rule. The overarching themes of multiculturalism, reconciliation and social harmony in the AFL workplace have been the guiding ideals that we examined and analysed. The outcomes from the research vectors look at and engage with key issues about race, diversity and difference as it pertains to the elite AFL code, but also looks at the ongoing international conversation as it pertains to these themes in sport. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

This book interrogates the process of court reporting on rape and other sexual crime cases involving Australian footballers. At the intersection of sport, gender, media and the law, it uncovers the story behind rape myths and stereotypes in media. This book analyses newspaper reporting alongside transcripts of the trials they represent and interviews with the journalists themselves. Waterhouse-Watson's work maps structural factors within newsrooms, and the complex relationship between the judiciary and media, that affect the practice of court reporting. This book approaches key journalism concepts like objectivity and balance critically, illustrating the layers of mediation that surround a complainant's testimony; the way sport shapes the meaning of courtroom and media narratives in these cases; and the tension between racism and sexism when race is thematised or otherwise highlighted. Ultimately, the book proposes an ethics of court reporting that protects individual complainants, as well as advancing public understandings of the crime.

What can possibly account for the strange state of affairs in professional sports today? There are billionaire owners and millionaire players, but both groups are constantly squabbling over money. Many pro teams appear to be virtual "cash machines," generating astronomical annual revenues, but their owners seem willing to uproot them and move to any city willing to promise increased profits. At the same time, mayors continue to cook up "sweetheart deals" that lavish benefits on wealthy teams while imposing crushing financial hardships on cities that are already strapped with debt. To fans today, professional sports teams often look more like professional extortionists.

In "Hard Ball, " James Quirk and Rodney Fort take on a daunting challenge: explaining exactly how things have gotten to this point and proposing a way out. Both authors are professional economists who specialize in the economics of sports. Their previous book, "Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports, " is widely acknowledged as the Bible of sports economics. Here, however, they are writing for sports fans who are trying to make sense out of the perplexing world of pro team sports. It is not money, in itself, that is the cause of today's problems, they assert. In fact, the real problem stems from one simple fact: pro sports are monopolies that are fully sanctioned by the U.S. government. Eliminate the monopolies, say Quirk and Fort, and all problems can be solved. If the monopolies are allowed to persist, so will today's woes.

The authors discuss all four major pro team sports: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. "Hard Ball" is filled with anecdotes, case studies, and factual information that are brought together here for the first time. Quirk and Fort devote chapters to the main protagonists in the pro sports saga--media, unions, players, owners, politicians, and leagues--before they offer their own prescription for correcting the ills that afflict sports today. The result is an engaging and persuasive book that is sure to be widely read, cited, and debated. It is essential reading for every fan.

'This isn't your typical footy book.'-Michael Rowland, ABC News Breakfast presenter A young, naive kid, with a brand-new football. Over time, the leather aged from the bumps along the trail. The Footscray winters and some glorious liniment-scented afternoons. All of the laughs, the scraps, the yarns and characters. The game. It all left a mark on me, on my soul. Bob Murphy has never been a typical footballer. Music buff, Age columnist and Winnebago driver, he is as comfortable in a quiet corner of a Fitzroy cafe or the front bar of a grungy pub as he is in the locker room. Murphy takes the reader inside his 17-year career, including his three years as captain of the Bulldogs, exploring the people, places and events that shaped him- from playing backyard cricket in 1980s Warragul to Community Cup with Paul Kelly in the 2000s, and from the joy of marrying his high-school crush to the agony of a season-ending ACL ruptures. How did the country kid with a gypsy's heart become an All-Australian captain? What's it like to have your club win the grand final for the first time in 62 years and have to cheer from the sidelines? How does it feel to realise you can no longer do the things that made you great? The celebrated Australian football bard Martin Flanagan has long insisted Bob Murphy has a book in him like no footballer has written. Leather Soul proves him right. 'We are indebted to him for making us believe in the game again.' -Gerard Whateley

An explosive biography about a footballer unlike any other. Phil Carman was capable of tearing a game apart. Despite his talent, he tore his own career apart. When Phil Carman was a kid in Edenhope, he thought he wasn't good enough to play VFL football. But when Carman's father died in a Melbourne hospital, friends noticed a change. While his mates were hanging out together, Carman, at 14, was running long distances around his home town. At 16, he kicked six goals in a half for Edenhope in a trial game against Collingwood. A few months later, Carman was training with Collingwood. The club and the vastness of Melbourne left him unimpressed. Carman returned to Edenhope. At 17, he kicked 89-goals for the senior team. His coach, John McBain, knew Carman was a future star. All he had to do was go to Collingwood. But Carman defied the VFL's zone system that tied him to Collingwood and went to Adelaide at Norwood's invitation. Carman and Norwood officials deliberately broke the rules, paying off a police officer to ensure they obtained a clearance. Incensed Collingwood officials launched the biggest interstate war ever seen in the VFL, forcing Carman out of football for two years. Carman returned to Norwood in 1973 but Collingwood refused to give up. A massive salary convinced him to move to Victoria in 1975. Carman's debut season is remembered as one of the best in VFL history. He was quickly dubbed Fabulous Phil. Despite missing eight games through injury, he won Collingwood's best and fairest, the Copeland Trophy and missed out on the Brownlow Medal by three votes. But the brilliance was punctuated by trouble. Carman clashed with teammates and coaches. He missed the 1977 drawn grand final and the replay after being suspended for striking Michael Tuck. Collingwood lost patience with their star and traded Carman to Melbourne in 1978. His four-year deal lasted one season because of an incident with Melbourne's coach Carl Ditterich. He crossed to Essendon for two years. In 1980, Carman became the first footballer to be suspended for head-butting a boundary umpire. At the end of 1981, Kevin Sheedy moved him on. Carman played one year with North Melbourne, again leaving in acrimonious circumstances when his coach, Barry Cable, wanted him to stay. Carman went back to Adelaide in the 90s and found football redemption, coaching Sturt into a grand final and helping save the club. Fabulous Phil is the story of a football nomad, a man craving success and determined to do it his own way. Carman amazed and frustrated teammates, coaches, officials and the fans. In Fabulous Phil, former players, coaches and umpires give insight into why success ultimately eluded Carman. And Carman tells his story, how it all happened.

In 2016 the Western Bulldogs stunned the AFL world by winning the Premiership - the club's first since 1954, and only its second ever. It was an unprecedented rise to success, capped by a stunning Grand Final victory that left players and fans alike shedding tears of joy. Kerrie Soraghan - blogging as the Bulldog Tragician - captured all the passion and drama of the remarkable win. At the end of the 2014 season the club had been in chaos- the captain had walked out, and the board had given the coach his marching orders. Led by a new captain and coach, Robert Murphy and Luke Beveridge, and boasting a team of talented youngsters, the club came together in spectacular fashion, overcoming serious injuries and storming to the Premiership from seventh on the ladder. The Bulldogs' best asset has always been their diehard supporters, and none is more passionate than the Bulldog Tragician. The Mighty West chronicles the experience of the team and of the fans - a tale of family and belonging, western suburbs tribalism, and the romance of sport.

What happened at Essendon, what happened at Cronulla, is only part of the story. From the basement office of a suburban football club to the seedy corners of Peptide Alley to the polished corridors of Parliament House, The Straight Dope is an inside account of the politics, greed and personal feuds which fuelled an extraordinary saga. Clubs and coaches determined to win, a sports scientist who doesn't play by the rules, a generation of footballers held hostage by scandal and injected with who knows what, sport administrators hell bent on control, an anti-doping authority out of its depth, an unpopular government that just wants it to end. For two tumultuous seasons this was the biggest game in Australia. The Straight Dope is here updated to include the most current and up-to-date material on this ongoing and seemingly never-ending saga.

Can you pick James Hird's great grand-father in the photo on the front cover? Who was the Carlton coach (and Test cricketer) who grew up on the Goldfields? Who was "Best on Ground" in the 1914 VFL Grand Final? Where did he die? Who was the indigenous defender who starred in the 1950 VFL Grand Final? Who is the champion woman footballer whose dad was a great VFL full-back? Find the answers to these questions and much more, in this one-eyed family story of Aussie Rules by Kevin Reed, who believes that to truly understand a sport it helps to know its history from different perspectives. Does your family have a similar story?

Beating chronic fatigue syndrome was his greatest achievement. Alastair Lynch, an Australian Rules footballer at the height of his career, was sleeping 18 hours a day. He couldn't play, and didn't know if he would ever play again. He didn't know what was wrong, until he discovered he had chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of Australians. But Alastair overcame CFS, giving other sufferers a reason to believe that they, too, can enjoy life again. He played football again and when he retired, it was as a 300-game triple premiership player with the Brisbane Lions, and a member of the Fitzroy and tasmanian teams of the Century. this is the story of his fight to get up and play, his determination to enjoy life with his family, and decision to never, ever take his health for granted.

Dual premiership captain Mark Bickley is one of Adelaide's favourite sons. Bickley has been one of the Crows' most reliable players and his consistently high standard of football was rewarded at the start of 1997 when he was made club captain. This biography by journalist Trevor Gill not only looks at a remarkable player, but at the ten years Adelaide FC has been in the AFL. Gill conveys the highs, the lows, the personalities and the passion South Australians have for their footy and the sharp divide between Crows fans and the Port Power following. Trevor Gill has Mark's full co-operation on this book: Mark talks of his fierce loyalty to his club and the pivotal moments in a career which has seen him and his team mates sit in the middle of the bottom eight but also achieve the highest prize on offer AFL.