Neil Balme (Paperback)

Paperback. Youve got to have that madness in your mind to win, win, win. Youve got to have that somewhere, but it cant consume you. The singular story of football's hardest man and sharpest mind. This story begins in infamy. Everyones first glimpse of the man is of ferocious blows struck in grand finals, his name splashed in headlines across the back pages of the tabloids. Its the 1970s, its Richmond: kill or be killed. There was a time when almost every football watcher who heard Neil Balmes name would react with disapproval. My God, what a bruiser . . . A dangerous fellow . . . And those who knew him would quickly deny these accusations. Hes not a brute, you know, hes a thinker . . . A mild-mannered bloke, easygoing. The great paradox of Balme is the violence and the pacifism, the mayhem and the calm, the rough justice and the gentleness. Hes a cold-blooded thug; hes a soft-hearted healer; hes a villain and a hero. Balme is unique in having spent longer than anyone else in clubland. Richmond, Norwood, Melbourne, Collingwood, Geelong and Richmond again over fifty years. Hes seen and created limitless change in those decades. So how did Neil Balme go from being the infamous on-field enforcer of the 1970s to the avuncular guru the football world knows and loves today? After eleven premierships, an aura surrounds the man. Get Balme to your club and success will follow. What has he to tell us of football, of the high times and the low, of the champs and the egos? Of Royce and GR, of Diamond Joe, of Eddie and Mick, of Bomber, of Dimma? And of life and the human heart? Balmes tale is, unsurprisingly, a mix of hard truth and unerring compassion. The long-awaited memoir of one of AFLs hardest players and most respected behind-the-scenes coaches. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. …