Between the Flags
Ian Munro

Between The Flags is a fan's memoir of the Melbourne Football Club's fall from dominant superpower at the elite level of Australian Rules football to a struggling also-ran over five decades. From interviews with former players, coaches, journalists and fans, and painstaking research into club and Victorian Football League records, it presents a clinical analysis of what changed so that the club that won 10 premierships in 26 seasons came to endure decades of failure with its very existence threatened.The book presents an unprecedented analysis of the impact of country zoning in the state of Victoria, and how that system advantaged some clubs and disadvantaged others to the extent that it transformed the competition in ways that still resonate today.It traces the Melbourne Demons' attempts to revive their fortunes through several eras before relating how the club was rebuilt to become a dominant force once more. The book ends with chapters covering the 2021 season, finals series and the Grand Final which ended Melbourne's 57 years in the footballing wilderness.As a journalist of more than 30 years' experience, a lifetime supporter of the club and a sometime volunteer working for the club magazine, the author is uniquely placed to tell this story. It begins with him recounting childhood delusions that his team was invincible that in turn spurred him to ask the question: what happened? Between The Flags is the answer.Between The Flags - 340 pages - includes 16 pages of illustrations recalling the Melbourne Football Club's golden era and contemporary figures.