Publisher's Synopsis
"Tommy Lahiff is a legend. The roles he has played as footballer, coach and commentator, and the esteem in which he is held in the Melbourne football world, would be difficult to exaggerate. If you can't get a good story out of him I'd be flabbergasted." Ron Barassi An unsentimental biography of Tommy Lahiff. Still a respected sports commentator, Tommy Lahiff, 85, was brought up in an era when world wars were a sad but important interruption to the most vital encounters of all - football and cricket. He is a link with the period when Melbourne was a collection of white, fiercely competitive, inner-suburban tribes. However, Tommy Lahiff's biography will be far more than a collection of yarns or an attempt to put a gloss on the life of a supposed working-class hero. The book will span the period from 1910 to the 1990s - everything from Tommy's first scrap at school to his very public refusal to disown his famous radio partner of 30 years, Harry Beitzel, when Beitzel was jailed in 1994 for his role in a Soccer Pools scandal.;It will ration the statistical details of Tommy Lahiff's long career as a player, coach, administrator and commentator, but be liberal with the colour, voice and texture of a man who straddles almost a century of Australian sport.
