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Immortals: Football People and the Evolution of Australian Rules Football
Australian Rules Football fanatic and Melbourne academic Lionel Frost has written this fascinating history of the sport through the careers of some of the greats. He shows how AFL (Australian Football League) has developed from an amateur, local sport to the professional, national industry that it is today. It explores the ways in which the lives and careers of players, coaches and administrators were shaped by the times in which they lived, and how their responses to challenges and opportunities in turn shaped the development of the game. In a broader sense, it is a series of stories about Australians, and about life in Australia, that all Australians will be able to relate to. Based on new research, and covering all states in which Australian Rules is the major code, the book features the careers of people such as Norm and Len Smith, John Kennedy, Jack Oatey, through to modern ?gures such as Tim Watson and Jason Akermanis. All of the living subjects, and in many cases the families of those who are deceased, have co-operated fully in the research and provided unpublished source material such as letters and notebooks. Foreword by Ron Barassi.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 15, 2025
My interest in this curious book is focussed on John Kennedy, legendary Hawthorn coach who led the side to its first premiership in 1961, further pennants in 1971 and 1976, and in the process providing the spiritual basis for the club forever after.
Kennedy was, by all accounts, an honourable man who also revolutionised the way AFL is played at the time, though he would be too modest to claim that for himself. I was interested to find out about the man’s life, because unlike other prominent AFL figures there is very little written about him.
I learned about his modest beginnings, his becoming an English and History teacher, ultimately becoming principal of a technical High School. He was always a part-time coach. As a player in the fifties he endured the continuing haplessness of the Hawthorn team. When he became coach he was determined that would change and he introduced hard training, unprecedented levels of fitness and instilled in his players a single-minded determination to get the ball and do something useful with it. His teams weren’t the most skilled, but they were the toughest.
The author embellishes his biography of Kennedy with the state of play at the club and more generally, an approach he takes for all his chosen ‘Immortals’. Using this word is a stretch, what he has done is chosen some pioneers and a sprinkling of players and coaches from the AFL states: Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia then venturing into New South Wales (Barry Round with Sydney), and Queensland (Jason Ackermanis with Brisbane). This format doesn’t really work.
What does work is when he gets into the lives and work of Norm Smith and his brother Len, famed as coaches for different reasons, and whose stories are jointly told in one very readable chapter. Frost adopts the same approach, though less successfully, with the Collier brothers from Collingwood, heroes of the Magpies premierships 1927 to 1930,
Norm Smith’s story is full of silverware on the field, tempestuous relations with some of this players and most of his Board, who ultimately lost patience with him and sacked the great man, resulting in Melbourne failing to win another premiership for 57 years. Beware sacking the golden goose. Norm’s brother Len coached Fitzroy and Richmond, with no success, but he was universally loved for his humanity and admired for his principles of football, extending his influence to future coaches like Tom Hafey and Alan Jeans, both of whom were conspicuously successful.
Kennedy was, by all accounts, an honourable man who also revolutionised the way AFL is played at the time, though he would be too modest to claim that for himself. I was interested to find out about the man’s life, because unlike other prominent AFL figures there is very little written about him.
I learned about his modest beginnings, his becoming an English and History teacher, ultimately becoming principal of a technical High School. He was always a part-time coach. As a player in the fifties he endured the continuing haplessness of the Hawthorn team. When he became coach he was determined that would change and he introduced hard training, unprecedented levels of fitness and instilled in his players a single-minded determination to get the ball and do something useful with it. His teams weren’t the most skilled, but they were the toughest.
The author embellishes his biography of Kennedy with the state of play at the club and more generally, an approach he takes for all his chosen ‘Immortals’. Using this word is a stretch, what he has done is chosen some pioneers and a sprinkling of players and coaches from the AFL states: Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia then venturing into New South Wales (Barry Round with Sydney), and Queensland (Jason Ackermanis with Brisbane). This format doesn’t really work.
What does work is when he gets into the lives and work of Norm Smith and his brother Len, famed as coaches for different reasons, and whose stories are jointly told in one very readable chapter. Frost adopts the same approach, though less successfully, with the Collier brothers from Collingwood, heroes of the Magpies premierships 1927 to 1930,
Norm Smith’s story is full of silverware on the field, tempestuous relations with some of this players and most of his Board, who ultimately lost patience with him and sacked the great man, resulting in Melbourne failing to win another premiership for 57 years. Beware sacking the golden goose. Norm’s brother Len coached Fitzroy and Richmond, with no success, but he was universally loved for his humanity and admired for his principles of football, extending his influence to future coaches like Tom Hafey and Alan Jeans, both of whom were conspicuously successful.
December 21, 2021
Excellent book covering the evolution of Australian Rules Football through potted histories of major administrators, players and coaches. Always interesting and I finished the book knowing a lot more about why the AFL is what is today.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews