This review originally written 11 July 2010
Just finished reading All I Can Be by former Collingwood champion Nathan Buckley. As far as footy autobiographies go it is pretty substantial, a bit over 400 pages. I found it a pretty absorbing read most of the time. He documents his whole career as you would expect in a book of this length but there is plenty of reflection and analysis of the craft, discipline, techniques and psychology involved in succeeding in football at the elite level. Buckley clearly indicates you have to be exceptionally tough mentally and physically to survive.

Cynics might suggest it formed part of a job application for his current assistant coach and head coach in waiting position at Collingwood. There could be some truth in that but who could blame a player with serious coaching aspirations for that. Overall I felt it was a pretty honest book.  The relationship between Buckley and his father was a fascinating one to learn about. It doesn’t contain the commonly used lists of greatest players, opponents, my greatest team sections etc. These segments are going out of style in footy biographies which is perhaps a good thing. However he does reveal that Cameron Ling was probably the hardest opponent he faced, Darren Jarman he rated as the best kick – he meant general field kicking,  and Gary Ablett Senior as the best player he had seen.

All I Can Be by Nathan Buckley, with Ben Collins

Rennie Ellis, a renowned photographer of Australian social life and personalities, took many photos of VFL football. Most of these date from the 1970s and 1980s. Many of these photos can be seen online through the State Library of Victoria’s website. There are approx 700 online images in Ellis’s footy pictures overall. See Rennie Ellis football images to view.

Trove is a vast online archive of Australian published and unpublished material. It includes a search-able catalog of books and other items in Australian Libraries.  Trove allows people to create an account which can be used to create lists, or give items descriptive tags. These features are now very common on social networking sites. There are some good footy lists and tags on Trove. A Trove user identified as ‘swade’ has created a useful list of  links to newspaper reports on VFL Grand Finals, and the Brownlow Medal. Check them out at VFL Grand Finals, and VFL Brownlow Medals. Check out AFL and VFL Football Club Histories, as well, this is one of my lists.