World Footy News

Footy Book Review: JUMPING AT THE CHANCE

By Gil Griffin, with foreword by Martin Flanagan

 

ISBN: 978-1-86395-851-6 • RRP $29.99

 

If you read reviews you will often see a review that stands out from the others. It probably goes against the trend of the other reviews. And that is because it often comes down to personal bias held by the reviewer which will not be swayed regardless of the quality of the content.  It should be stated up front of course. 

So here I have to state that this book I am reviewing plays very much to my bias. I am extremely interested in any footy stories coming out of the US. I have closely followed the story arcs of all of the Americans covered in this book. And I love that new fans around the world, like the author Gil Griffin can not only find our game, but fall in love with it.

 

I have long been frustrated by the lack of available details about the Americans that have come to AFL clubs and left quietly. Little explanation is given and they just disappear into the ether. The stories of how it went down for the likes of Shae McNamara at Collingwood (and almost at Hawthorn), Eric Wallace at North Melbourne and Alex Starling (at the Sydney Swans), and the where are they now were extremely satisfying for me.

 

Gil goes into great depths to tell the story of each player, their background, their family, friends and coaches at home and how they saw the transition to this strange Aussie game unfold.   The homesickness, the long hours of learning the basic skills, the battles on cold wet suburban grounds plying their trade are told by the players themselves but also by their coaches and team mates.

 

It would be easy to just focus on the centre stage stories of Jason Holmes and Mason Cox who have made their AFL debuts in the past 12 months (which he does in great detail) but Gil set out to be as comprehensive as possible. He goes back to Dwayne Armstrong and his trailblazing journey at Essendon under Kevin Sheedy. He takes us behind the scenes at the AFL’s US Combines where I felt like I was right there in the middle of the eclectic mix of athletes all vying for a trip to Australia to do something they knew very little about. 

 

And the book also covers other avenues such as Miro Gladovic’s US Footy Star program that sent out three players to Australia in 2015 who ended up playing at Temora.  He reveals the story behind the program that ultimately had Brendon Kaufman signed by the Gold Coast Suns. And then there are those just decided to take matters into their own hands such as Alexander Aurrichio and Rory Smith and have both played in state leagues in Australia.

 

Showing a great feel for the current state of footy in Australia Gil also details the potential for US women to be part of the upcoming 2017 women’s national league with the stories of Katie Klatt and Kim Hemenway showing just how the game can grab American athletes and see them sacrifice so much for a chance to make it in to the footy big time in Australia.

 

One particular chapter really had me enthralled above the others though and it was the one I knew least about before reading this book. The chapter goes into great detail to provide a master and apprentice story of one of the US combine athletes selected to come to Australia. It tells how he came to be connected with an Australian Denis Ryan. Ryan is the President of the USAFL, and the story of how he took Marvin Baynham into his own home with his family and brought him up to speed for his AFL audition at the National Draft in Melbourne is brilliantly told (I will not spoil the ending here).

 

Maybe you are someone who can just accept it at face value when someone like Mason Cox runs out for your footy club. But if you want to know what is really going on behind the scenes to make this kind of debut happen, get the full story and learn a lot more about the personalities involved, then you will get plenty out of this book.  I did. I loved reading this book and powered through it to learn so many of the answers to questions I had for a long time about a number of these players. I may be biased but the content was high quality and told in a great style. I have to say that this book was so much up my alley I felt like it was written for me.