Rugby League began as a breakaway game from the original Rugby Union in northern England to accommodate working class players. League dominates in Queensland and New South Wales.
To increase interest in the sport, the ‘State of Origin’ series was introduced featuring the Blues representing NSW and the Maroons representing Queensland. Three games are played annually with players selected depending on where they played their junior football.
Supporting the Maroons became Darren Groth’s major obsession in life. Now, fast approaching his 60th year, he has written a memoir analysing selected State of Origin games over the past 40 years or so. Fortunately, Groth is a novelist (nine books with four targeted toward young adults) and ‘has a way with words’. His prose flows effortlessly and his many witty remarks will keep even non-League followers smiling.
This memoir also tells us about his life away from watching the game. Meeting his future wife is delightfully ‘Mills & Boon’ … the adult version. And teaching in a school for disadvantaged students is a bit of a struggle but has many gratifying moments.
However, having difficulty becoming parents is stressful, and bringing up two children, one of whom is autistic, is exhausting. Those pages are deeply personal, refreshingly frank and often heart-rending.
Stay positive, stay together and stay sane are the three valuable messages readers will take away from this memoir.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Darren is the author of nine novels including Kindling, Are You Seeing Me?, Exchange of Heart and his most recent North American work, Boy in the Blue Hammock. He is an Adelaide Festival Award for Literature winner, a two-time finalist in the Queensland Literary Awards, and a past nominee for numerous other prestigious prizes, among them the CBCA Book of the Year, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, The Text Prize, and the Governor General’s Literary Awards in Canada. He has written for newspapers, magazines and literary journals including The Courier-Mail, The Sun-Herald, Mamamia, The Lifted Brow and Syntax. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Visit Darren Groth’s website here.
Follow Darren Groth on Instagram here.
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