Salary caps, drunken escapades, sponsorship deals, and teams enjoying victory and surviving defeat dominate coverage of football. Meanwhile, fans agonise over line-ups, sweat over results, and look forward to the weekly football ritual. With each new season, having hibernated over the long, hot summer, the team emerges as if revived and raises hopes anew. The keen supporter is hooked back into a revived ritual of precarious pleasures that is played out within quasi-tribal cheer squads, intense friendship networks and, at least momentarily, united nuclear families. What hooks fans back in and why do they care so much? In this riveting and moving book, AFL fans talk about the emotions associated with the game and how it gives meaning to their lives, showing that football is more than just a game.
