WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO ‘WAR’

Brendan Rhodes

As the blurb says, some clubs just have not seen eye to eye since the days they came into existence.

Rivalries go right to the heart of what sport – not just football – is all about, and Australian Football has some of the longest-running sagas of bad blood in the world.

Think Collingwood v Carlton, or Collingwood v anybody (although Essendon also features heavily). But Magpie supporters (and how they love it!) aren’t the only ones to get on the nerves of rival teams, as this new book from footy author Francis Doherty describes in detail – exploring the emotions of these rivalries rather than the statistics.

Rivalry: Famous Footy Feuds – The VFL Years describes itself as a book that “explores some of the most compelling ongoing sagas between the teams, battles which have developed over the past century”.

“Tensions built by strong personalities and rivalries created by geography have defined a unique footy folklore; a folklore that is characterised by vigorous competition and grudges and fueled by hungry fans and media who have fanned the flames”.

The book explores “the perpetual rivalry” of the Magpies and Blues and the “mutual disdain” of Carlton v Essendon, clubs that have butted heads for ever.

It also touches on the VFL’s first rivalry between Fitzroy and Collingwood; Footscray’s battles with Essendon when the Bulldogs were trying to join the competition in the 1920s; South Melbourne’s ‘Foreign Legion’ – the reason the Swans’ nickname came into lexicon – and their contests with Collingwood in the 1930s and ‘The Bush v The Smoke’ (Geelong v Collingwood) in the early 1950s.

The Magpies also waged metaphorical wars with Melbourne in the late 1950s and St Kilda in the 1960s, with Doherty also talking about the Battle of Windy Hill between Essendon and Richmond in 1974; the Saints’ Moorabbin ‘Animal Enclosure’ and its stoush with the Bombers in 1978; the ding-dong showdowns between the Bombers and Hawthorn in the 1980s and the emergence of the Cats v Hawks disdain borne from the Mark Yeates v Dermott Brereton incident in the 1989 Grand Final that still runs deep today – fanned of course by the boilover of 2008.

Simply, from start to finish, this is a must-read for any footy fan.

BITTER BATTLES: There has never been any love lost when Collingwood has taken on Carlton over the years.

Rivalry: Famous Footy Feuds –The VFL Years, by Francis Doherty. RRP: $44.99. Available at Readings, Avenue bookstores, Benn’s Books, Neighbourhood Books and Paperback Books. For more information, email Francis Doherty at frdoherty@optusnet.com.au