A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves

A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves, by Roy Hay and Bill Murray and published by Hardie Grant will be available in all good bookshops in May.

This book has been fourteen years in the making and comes at the time when football in Australia is ready to embrace its history at last, not to wallow in nostalgia, but to assert that it is a key part of the making of this country’s sporting landscape and its broader social history.

The book comes at a very exciting time and will be something fans of the game and people who want to learn about it will find incredibly useful in the next couple of years as Australia takes part in the World Cup in Brazil, hosts the Asian Cup of Nations in January 2015 and the Matildas seek to defend their Asian crown and qualify for the World Cup in Canada in 2015.

At home the A-League is producing the most exciting games and there is long history of national competition prior to that. Melbourne Knights is a proud part of the modern story, and some of its past contributions to the game since the foundation of Melbourne Croatia in the 1950s are recounted in the book.

Football, they say, is a matter of opinion and this book encapsulates some of the arguments the two authors have had about the game and its place in Australian society and history since it began way back in the nineteenth century.

If you want to understand football in Australia this is the book with which you should start.

It is the most comprehensive and detailed history of the development of football in Australia, illustrated with over 400 images.

Roy Hay and Bill Murray are respected academics, football historians and well known throughout football in Australia.

The book is also available for pre-order online at the SBS Shop.

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