Justin "Harry" Madden holds a unique place in the hearts of Australian Rules football fans. As a player, the 208cm-tall Carlton giant has won two premierships in a sixteen-year career spanning more than 300 games, and earned universal recognition as one of the greatest ruckmen of all-time. Off the field, as the longstanding president of the AFL Players' Association, Madden has been a canny, witty observer of the game and what makes it tick, viewing AFL as an industry and refusing to look at it through the rose-tinted spectacles handed out to everyone by the game's authorities.
'Harry' is his story. But it's more than just the tale of how a gangly, uncoordinated youth from Melbourne's downtrodden northern suburbs rose to become a leader of his fellow players on and off the field. It is a penetrating, sharp, funny, serious and utterly original look at the game of Australian Rules football - covering every aspect of the modern game from clubs, coaches, administrators, umpires and the Tribunal to away trips, his fellow players and the media pressures high-profile players must now face.
It is a book much like its author: intelligent, sagacious, honest, humorous, and standing head and shoulders above everything else in its field.
