Footy Almanac - of and by the fans
When footy season's over, the behaviour of many fans in the late spring and summer months will be determined by the way their team has performed. For those whose team has won the flag, reliving the glory over and over again will be a priority. They will buy the DVD of the Grand Final, re-read the post-Grand Final match reports and grab a copy of every different “season in review” publication they can get their hands on.
Similarly, those whose team is on the rise will be keen to read their side's season review, especially the ones that spruik the team as one that's “ready to take the next step”.
Those whose team came close but just missed out could go one of two ways. Some might shy away from reading anything about the season, because the memories are too fresh and painful. Others might devour reports of where it all came undone and how next year will definitely be “their year”.
Supporters of the also-rans might be equally divided between those looking to avoid re-living a “season from hell” and those looking for the bright spots in a “rebuilding season”.
In amongst all the post-season review and pre-season preview publications, there's one that caters for any or all of the above. It's The Footy Almanac, now in its sixth edition.
Conceived in 2007 by John Harms, The Footy Almanac is published at the conclusion of each AFL season and features a report on every game played in that year. But what makes the Almanac different is that each one of these reports is written by a fan, approached from their own personal perspective. It might be a fan who is at the game, riding each and every bump his or her team experiences. It could be a fan who is taking in the game on the couch at home, with the kids screaming and fighting in the background. It might even be a fan who's out in the backyard doing the June rose-prune, with an ear turned towards the shed radio, taking in the words of Tim Lane, Gerard Whateley or Rex Hunt.
It was these fans that Harms identified in 2007 as not having much of a voice, and the idea behind The Footy Almanac was to provide them with a platform from which to "broadcast". With little more than that idea in his head, Harms proceeded to contact footy fans who he thought might be interested joining the pack. Before long he found that he no longer had to be proactive in seeking out potential contributors to the book. A chance meeting at the pub or in the street, at which Harms would briefly outline his idea was almost always all it took to elicit a response along the lines of, “What a great idea! I'd love to be part of it”.
So, in the days leading up to the first round of the 2007 season, Harms made sure he had a contributor for each of those eight games. And he did the same before Round 2, and so on throughout the year. For a good proportion of that season, Harms had no certainty that any of these fan pieces would ever make the printed page. But that deterred neither Harms nor the other contributors. And neither did it deter Paul Daffey, Harms' colleague at the Melbourne Age, who agreed to be co-editor from the beginning.
This uncertainty was countermanded by a belief that there was a want – a need – for a voice of the fans in print. By late in the 2007 season, Harms had formed Malarkey Publications (Malarkey, as in Gary Malarkey, the Geelong stalwart of Harm's formative following years; and also the deprecating and ironic descriptor of their publishing mission—as in malarkey, n. "bunkum".) and secured financial backing from shareholders and a couple of early sponsors. Throughout that September finals series, everything began to fall into place for Harms – not simply in terms of bringing the book together but also on the football field. Harms, a lifelong Geelong supporter, saw both his off-field dream – the Almanac – and his on-field dream – a drought-breaking Cats' flag realised. Prominent Melbourne artist Martin Tighe, a long-time friend of Daffey's, was enlisted to depict on canvas Paul Chapman's famous mark from Geelong's Grand Final thrashing of Port Adelaide. This became the cover of the first release of The Footy Almanac.
The Almanac and the Geelong flag completed a magical year for Harms, whose wife Susan (lovingly referred to by Harms in many of his Age racing articles as The Handicapper) gave birth to their first child Theo earlier that October, just days before the first edition went to print.
The 2007 edition of The Footy Almanac was launched in November of that year at Trades Hall in Carlton. I attended as a friend of one of the 34 contributors, John Weldon. I had not been aware of the concept prior to receiving Weldon's invitation days earlier. The Hall was full of the who's who of what might be called Melbourne's “alternative” footy fans. I can remember rubbing shoulders with singer Paul Kelly and feeling pretty excited. But what really stayed with me long after that night was the huge passion of the people there – authors and friends alike – for the great game of footy. As a keen reader of football writings, I knew that Harms, Daffey et al had created something special.
Such was the success of the 2007 edition and the overall concept of the Almanac, Harms and Daffey received requests from far and wide from would-be contributors. The 2008 edition saw the book co-published by Malarkey and Penguin-Viking. The brilliant cover featured a forlorn Matthew Richardson as seen through the eyes and paint of the Age's Jim Pavlidis. The book combined the efforts of no less than 89 writer-fans, of which I was one.
Such was the enthusiasm of potential writers, Harms and Daffy realised at the beginning of the 2009 season that one book would not be able to satisfy the writing urges of all, and the website footyalmanac.com.au was born. The site catered for those who did not get a gig in the book and for those who may have had an article or two in the book but felt they had much more to say. The website's scope quickly expanded to include other sports, with the 2009 Ashes tour and racing becoming a feature. The book continued to go from strength to strength, with a wonderful wrap-around cover by Nick Howson of Buddy Franklin cradling articles by 122 different authors.
And so it has continued.
The Footy Almanac also spawned monthly Friday lunches and the annual Manning Clark cricket oration. The yearly book launches in each capital city are “must-attend” affairs with the writer Aanson Cameron, comedian Lawrence Mooney and Richo himself among the guest-speakers over the years.
Who reads The Footy Almanac? And more importantly, when considering its future, who buys it? Fans of the premier team can always be relied on to purchase copies in the season of their success. But do the fans of the also-rans really want to relive the heartbreak of a narrow finals loss or the despair of another dismal season? Many would say no, and that may well be a reason that sales of the book have plateaued in recent years. This is a shame, because the passion and writing skills of the vast majority of the contributors is generally enough to sustain not just each piece but the book as a whole.
As both a “rusted-on” Almanacker and a Footscray fan who despaired many of the lamentable Dogs performances in 2012, I can still appreciate the viewpoint of fans who have watched the same games I did from a different angle. Or I can choose to ignore the Bulldog games and read takes on the 150-odd other matches that were played in the season. And with each read I learn a bit more about the game and the fans and what makes both tick.
My favourite Almanac is the 2009 edition, a likely reflection of the relative success of the Doggies that year and of my significant involvement in both the book and the website during that season. Harms, when pressed, would not nominate a favourite. “It's a bit like being asked to choose your favourite kid”, he said; he can say that, having added Anna to the family in 2009 and Evie in 2011 (both Geelong premiership seasons).
One of the points Harms hammers home to would-be contributors is that he doesn't want straight match reports in the Almanac. That territory is already covered well enough in the press and on any number of mainstream websites. What Harms seeks is a personal perspective of the game, a narrative of the interplay between the fan's ordinary life, the sport and its characters. The scene-setting introduction to Mike Sexton's Round 12 Adelaide v St Kilda match report in the 2012 Almanac is a fine example:
Here is an Adelaide story. It's the height of summer and a group of families is spending the afternoon at Henley Beach. The sun is still a ferocious ball in the sky when a committee decides on fish and chips. I am dispatched with car keys, a $50 note and a mantra:
Double chips... four fish cakes... four flake... Coke
The chip shop is hotter than the beach. The old Greek bloke listens to the mantra, nods and dumps potatoes and seafood into the deep fryer. His brow is sweaty, his shoulders hairy. The iced coffee from the fridge has perspiration beads running down it. I slump omyo a sticky plastic seat under a fading photograph of Mykonos. An old wireless plays scratchy talkback from an ethnic community station. As I pour the milk down my parched throat the plastic streamers at the door part, allowing shafts of blinding white light in. A silhouette stands like one painted onto the exterior of a gymnasium wall in the 1960s. Only when I move forward can I see it isn't Hercules - it is Patrick Dangerfield.
He approaches the counter where Mr Mykonos hands him a pre-prepared packet. They chat briefly then Dangerfield looks across at me and holds up the pack slightly as if to endorse the contents and he's gone. When the streamers settle down and the cook returns to the bubbling fat there is pause to reflect on another reason to like Dangerfield. Here at the height of pre-season, after a gruelling session in furnace conditions, the Crows' future has stopped by his local chip shop. Then there is only one thought left. Please let him have ordered banana fritters.
Harms is rightly proud of all The Footy Almanac has achieved. The books and the website have fostered a strong community of previously unpublished and published writers, young and not-so-young. Harms takes great pleasure in having witnessed the development of the writing skills of Susie Giese, Danielle Eid (who gave the Almanac a "teeny-bopper" voice) and Josh Barnstable among others who joined the community in their high school years and are now forging ahead on journalistic career paths. Joseph Walker was not a reader until one day in Grade 6 his father bought him The Footy Almanac; now he is not only a reader, he’s a keen contributor
Even the not-so-young, such as myself, have been given a wide-reaching voice, where none previously existed. Prior to the existence of the Almanac, I had not been published in any form, yet the experience gained through writing for the website and the book opened the way for me to have my own regular column, Giga Bites, in the Age (sadly no longer) and my current role with AustralianFootball.com. Matt Zurbo, a professional writer and with several books under his belt, joined the Almanac community and since becoming an "Almanacker", has been commissioned to compile an oral history of VFL/AFL footy.
Others, such as stalwarts “Dips” O'Donnell, Matt O'Connor, Craig Little, Bill Walker, Yvette Wroby and Chris Riordan have written brilliant football essays that would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the Almanac.
The Almanac engine continues to purr along. The website and the book's future appears assured - at least for the foreseeable future. In 2012, the first Rugby League edition of the Almanac was published. Harms has even flagged the possibility of "retro" editions of the Almanac, with writers tackling games from a season long past. The concept is tantalising.
In the meantime, as an introduction to fine football writing, it's definitely worth grabbing yourself a copy of the 2012 edition of The Footy Almanac.
The 2012 edition of The Footy Almanac and all earlier editions (2007-2011) can be purchased via footyalmanac.com.au.
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