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A Rain of Dollars

by
September 2003, no. 254

Playing God: The rise and fall of Gary Ablett by Garry Linnell

HarperCollins, $29.95 pb, 343 pp

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Bob Rose: A dignified life by Steve Strevens

Allen & Unwin, $29.95 pb, 320 pp

A Rain of Dollars

by
September 2003, no. 254

Early in the 2003 AFL season, Peter Rohde, the new coach of the Western Bulldogs, announced as one his initiatives that players should either find parttime work or some similar engagement consistent with their club commitments, or embark on a TAFE, university, VCE or other study programme. This mildly sensational proposition was designed to reduce the aimless hours spent by many players, especially the young and unencumbered, loitering in malls, coffee joints and other haunts.

Perhaps Rohde, whose fairly disastrous first coaching year belies his articulate and intelligent approach to the game, had in mind a problem more serious, less graspable, than simple time wasting. Perhaps he was observing that modern professional footballers risk becoming more and more disjoined from the people who come to see them play; that the upper echelon members of a homegrown and still highly parochial sport can easily become exotic, rarefied, a different breed; and that, worst of all, they might come to believe in their own fancied difference, a condition known at ground level as ‘believing your own bullshit’.

Playing God: The rise and fall of Gary Ablett

Playing God: The rise and fall of Gary Ablett

by Garry Linnell

HarperCollins, $29.95 pb, 343 pp

Bob Rose: A dignified life

Bob Rose: A dignified life

by Steve Strevens

Allen & Unwin, $29.95 pb, 320 pp

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