The Last Quarter

One of the better Australian Rules Football tomes I have read. Flanagan is a fine journalist / writer but then it is in the blood as he is the brother of Richard Flanagan, a winner of the Man Booker.

This is a 3 part book with an essay tacked on the end.

The first part 1970 tells of the famous Grand Final of that year between Carlton and Collingwood. Excellent read.

The second part is his book called Southern Sky, Western Oval and is about a year he spent following the battling Footscray team in season 1993. Not bad but the editing was disastrous and distracted the flow at times. One instead of won????? Lots of errors such as that.

The final part was called The Game in a Time of War. This was a collection of essays and newspaper items he had written while Australia was involved in the Iraq war. Beginning with September 11 and taking the essays through to March 2003, I found this part of the book to be at times outstanding.

The final few pages cover the life of Tom Wills in what is a personal view of this enigmatic individual, a pioneer of the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wills

This book well worth the time of Australian Rules Football lovers and may be of interest to those who like to read about sports in terms of cultural impact on a nation.