In a revelation of the literary world, Aussie Rules meets the Travelling Wilburys as Australia's best football writers, including Dockerland's own Les Everett (played by Kate Blanchett in the upcoming film) and Nathan Jarvis (played by Ernie Dingo), have been brought together by Paul Daffy and John Harms to produce The Footy Almanac The AFL season one game at a time. So good was the first edition in 2007 that they've had to fight off sponsors this year to include only the highest calibre of discount electronic stores and Richmond green grocers.

If you're like most people, you probably hear the word Almanac and instantly want to hop in your Delorian, travel twenty years into the future and hand yourself a copy so you can make a fortune at the bookies, alter the space time continuum and get breast implants for the chick out of Caroline in the City. It's the obvious thing to do.

But this is no ordinary, run of the mill Almanac, this is an Aussie Rules Footy Almanc. It's not just a collection of facts and figures or one of these season highlights packages where you're forced to read about the trials and tribulations of the bottom placed big 5 Victorian clubs, pages and pages of meaningless statistics and the many ways in which John Worsfold stole ideas from Chris Connolly and buggered them up. You get a complete game by game account of the season. Each match, covered in a couple of pages and all the relevant stats. It's like watching the footy the way Robert Walls does. You may even want to think about growing a silly beard.


You can spend your entire summer reliving the great moments of the 2008 season- and even the rubbish moments. The Dockers first win of the season, their other win. The time Pavlich hit the post and cost Freo the game, the other time Pavlich hit the post and cost Freo the game. The emergence of Rhys Palmer and the last days of Jeff Farmer.

But it's not just about footy. With so many writers from so many different background, each match is a window into how the game is watched. Hopes are shattered in just two and a half hours, heroes reduced to bums, memberships torn up, life long allegiances abandoned by three quarter time - and that's just the reports of the West Coast matches.

You'll find out what Richard Arrowsmith thinks of hats with flowers, where Les Everett ate after every game of football this season, why no one likes Geelong supporters any more, how Nathan Jarvis jinxed the Doggies, the shameful coffensions of Di Waddington and that Kepler Bradley has had more past lives than Shirley McLain. Cameron Noakes shares his Antoni Grover like knowledge of strip clubs and tales of him trying to get to naked queens, Kelly Muldoon struggles to come to grips with Jeff Farmer's ability to be in two places at once and Mike Shuttleworth sums up Fremantle entire season in twenty one words and a hyphen.

So get into the book shop and pick one up for various loved ones before Christmas, it's the Frankensense of the twenty first century; or, if you've know you've got a few book vouchers on their way come Thursday, ring up Dymocks and tell them to get a stack in for Boxing Day.

The Footy Almanac: The AFL season one game at a time.
Malarkey Publications
Edited by John Harms and Paul Daffey
RRP: $29.95