January 11, 2012

Book review...

Flying the Banner is a surprising book. On the surface it’s about a few footy seasons in the lives of the volunteers who create and hold up the banners for the Fremantle Dockers to run through at home games. That might suggest limited interest for the general reader.... even for readers who are  Dockers supporters.
However author Helen Budge, who uses mainly oral history interview transcripts to tell the individual stories of members of the banner team, takes us deep into lives as well as deep into an aspect of the AFL experience that is always seen but rarely examined.
If you’re interested in how, when and where the banners are made there’s enough technical information scattered through the book to keep you satisfied. And there’s an appendix: Making a banner: frequently asked questions.
This book deals with the Fremantle-based Dockers banner team. There’s another group of people who look after interstate banners and somehow manage to get to every game.
The candid individual stories make this book fascinating. A number of the female team members are widows. The banner team has not just provided an outlet for these women – I detected a note of newly found freedom in some of their stories. Many of the women, and while they are in the majority it’s not an all-female crew, have led lives constrained by family commitments and the forced abandonment of careers upon marriage.
One of the younger team members admits that her “admiration” for Leigh Brown went a bit too far but she’s changed now: “So I don’t have a favourite player any more because all of them leave. I do have a soft spot for Hasleby but he does frustrate me. I don’t really like Matthew Pavlich any more. It’s Pav’s nose. I don’t mind Ryan Murphy and I don’t mind Duffield.”
Another relates a juicy tale of revenge on an ex.
Flying the Banner will take you into surprising places from old Fremantle to places afar and into religion and politics and philosophy and, most importantly, right out there on the ground with the players.
Flying the Banner: Stories of the Fremantle Dockers Banner Team 2007-2010 by Helen Budge can be bought at:
The State Library Shop, Alexander Library Building in  Perth.
Email: shop@slwa.wa.gov.au

The Well Bookshop, Shop 4/37 Ardross Street, Applecross 6153
Ph: 93169822
email: applecross@thewellbookshop.com

Melbourne Sports Books, 80 Flinders Street, Melbourne, Vic 3000
Ph: (03) 9662 1085
email: info@melbournesportsbooks.com.au
Web: www.melbournesportsbooks.com.au

or from
hbudge@global.net.au
Flying the Banner also is on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-the-Banner-by-Helen-Budge/131345663613234

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