Australian Football

1989: The Great Grand Final

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Asking a player to write a book about a single season, with a focus on the Grand Final, can be a fraught experience. The past few decades have been littered with "player diary" style tomes, many of which have been forgettable stocking-fillers. But for 1989: The Great Grand Final, Geoff Slattery's choice of Tony Wilson was an inspired one.

Wilson is, of course, already an author of note, having written the excellent Players and Making News, as well as myriad children's books. But while Players and Making News are works of fiction, they are clearly grounded in Wilson's observations of sporting reality. As a member of Hawthorn's senior list in 1989, Wilson was there to observe close up Hawthorn's quest to win back-to-back premierships for the first time in its history.

Sadly for Wilson, while he was part of the senior playing list, he did not play a senior game in 1989 nor, in fact, in any of his four seasons at Hawthorn. But Wilson's misfortune is our gain as readers of 1989. The fact that he viewed one of the most dramatic games in history from the sidelines, but with an intimate knowledge of every participant on the winning team, ensures that 1989 gives us a perspective that is more or less first-hand without being self-indulgent.

Tony Wilson is also a very funny man, and in 1989, he injects humour at just the right moments, relieving tension with precision timing. Wilson also builds that tension with great skill. Given that most readers of 1989 will know the result of the match and how it unfolded, being able to take them through the full spectrum of emotions of the drama is no mean task. Wilson pulls it off with aplomb. 

For many years I eschewed the commonly held view of 1989 as the greatest Grand Final of the modern era, mainly because that, while the final margin was just six points, for much of the game Hawthorn was six goals or more in front. But I began to reevaluate my verdict several years ago when asked to write about the match for Grand Finals Volume III.¹ Revisiting the match through documentaries and player interviews gave me greater insight into the brutality of the match and how close to being laid out on the canvas the Hawks were through much of the second half.

In devoting an entire book to the match, Wilson has made me revise further my original evaluation of that contest. With a deftness that belies the difficulty of the challenge, he takes us into minds and hearts of a Hawthorn coaching panel that is aware of just how vulnerable the team is throughout the second half, despite the yawning scoreboard gap between the Hawks and Cats. While fans watching would have been aware of a growing injury toll, they could not have known the seriousness of Hawthorn's plight.

Thanks to Wilson, readers of 1989 now do. 

1989: The Great Grand Finals is a 63-chapter page-turner that draws you in and won't let go. As someone who was immersed in the drama, Wilson never makes himself the focus of 1989, and he inserts self-references to only to provide context and insight into the main protagonists, and the odd moment of comedy relief.

Wilson captures the famous and infamous moments of the 1989 Grand Final beautifully. The Yeates-Brereton collision; Brereton's goal minutes later; Gary Ablett's wizardry; Alan Jeans's gentle but somehow bone-rattling "pay the price" speech — all are recreated in a way that takes us onto the ground and into the change rooms on that day more than 30 years ago.

It's hard to find fault with 1989, but if I was to do so, it would be the exclusion of the photo of Gary Ablett colliding with Robert DiPierdomenico, described by Wilson in Chapter 33 as having "murderous beauty". 'Dipper' also provides his assessment of it, with "a novelist's eye and the DiPierdomenico tongue". Wilson and Dipper's evocative words had me searching the book's colour photo insert sections for the image in question but, alas, it is not included.

Still, that is but a minor blemish on a superbly crafted and executed historical work. Long may footy deliver Grand Finals of such brutal beauty, and long may wordsmiths such as Tony Wilson be there to witness them and tell the tale.

1989: The Great Grand Final by Tony Wilson is published by Hardie Grant Books .