Regulars
BOOK OF THE MONTH
The man who fell to earth
by Andrew Begg
October 2004
PLAYING GOD - The rise and fall of Gary Ablett,
by Garry Linnell
HarperCollinsPublishers, 343 pages,
ISBN 0-7322-7449-4
In sport-mad Australia, Australian Rules football is the country's most popular winter sport. Of Australia's six states, Australian Rules dominates society throughout four of them. Players who make it to the highest level, the national competition, the Australian Football League (AFL), are accorded rock star status.
No AFL player in the last generation captured the public's imagination like Gary Ablett. He could spreadeagle packs with his sheer muscular bulk, break away from opposition players with lightning bursts of pace, kick further than anyone else and fly higher for a mark. Ablett was a freak. Throughout the 1990s he was one of Australia's most lionised sportsmen, while in Geelong - Victoria 's second largest city after Melbourne, the home of AFL - doors opened for Ablett everywhere. The people of Geelong treated him like a king as he virtually carried the entire Geelong team on his shoulders to one finals series after another.
Yet Gary Ablett was an enigma. A simple country fellow who could catch rabbits with his hands, Ablett owed money everywhere. But such was his hero status at Geelong there would always be a club minder to come and clear up after him, pay off a tab or smooth out the many problems left in his wake. He was a devout Christian but carefree and careless, entirely neglectful of those closest to him. All Ablett ever wanted to do was play football. Moreover, it was all he really could do. When retirement eventually came, a career in media would be the logical step for anyone of Ablett's status, but he would clam up in front of cameras to such an extent that that alternative was never an option.
Instead, Ablett became an inveterate, self-indulgent partygoer. In 2000, when he was found one morning in a Melbourne hotel room with an infatuated fan who had died from an overdose of heroin and ecstacy, his fall was complete. Ablett managed to escape a jail sentence and is currently attempting to rebuild his life with missionary work amongst Africa's poorest children.
This book is as much a biography of Gary Ablett as it is a testament to how fame can ruin the life of those who are unprepared for it. Garry Linnell is one of Australia's most respected journalists, who spent the 1990s writing about sport at Melbourne's premier newspaper, The Age, when Gary Ablett was at the height of his footballing career. Currently he is editor-in-chief of The Bulletin, Australia's premier weekly business magazine.
Vivid Book of the Month archive
>>THE
ATONEMENT CHILD,
BY FRANCINE RIVERS
October 2005
>>LIVE,
BY PETRU BOGDAN
September 2005
>>MR
NASTASE - THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
June/July 2005
>>FAST
FOOD NATION
BY ERIC SCHLOSSER
May 2005
>>THEFT
OF A NATION - ROMANIA SINCE COMMUNISM,
BY CHARLES PATTERSON
April 2005
>>ETERNAL
TREBLINKA ,
BY CHARLES PATTERSON
March 2005
>>RUNNING
WITH THE BULLS - MY YEARS WITH THE HEMINGWAYS
BY VALERIE HEMINGWAY
February 2005
>>TENDER
IS THE NIGHT,
BY F.SCOTT FITZGERALD
December 2004
>>SLAUGHTERHOUSE,
BY GAIL A. EISNITZ
November 2004
>>BRIGHT
PLANET,
BY PETER MEWS
September 2004
