Pitched Battle

in the frontline of the 1971 Springbok tour of Australia
Larry Writer

‘Artful in its arrangement and humane in its spirit … Honouring the moral actions of its protagonists, it also confirms the efficacy of determined and creative resistance to social wrong.’

Sean Scalmer, The Saturday Age

‘It was frightening and chaotic, but we knew we were right. This is exactly the way it happened. Larry Writer takes us into the heart of the great human-rights campaign of the era.’

Meredith Burgmann

View all reviews

‘A remarkably detailed and wonderfully enthralling account of Australian sport’s bloodiest confrontation. Larry Writer expertly skewers the lingering myth that politics and sport don't mix.’

Richard Hinds

‘Perhaps the most striking aspect of Writer's work is the picture of Australia during that time, an isolated nation still under the long post-war Liberal reign that ardently clung to an innocent hope in the separation of sport and politics.’

Inside Sport

‘A fascinating account of important Australian sporting and political history.’

Nick Goldie, Queenbeyean Bulletin

‘Larry Writer tells this amazing story with aplomb, showing admirable balance as he weaves together rugby, politics and social change. This is much more than a sports book and will appeal to all lovers of good Australian social and political history.’

Dave Martus, Books+Publishing

‘A vivid story of the men and women who took a stand when sport mixed with politics In 1971 … Pitched Battle recreates what became one of the most rancorous periods in modern Australian history — a time of courage, pain, faith, fanaticism, and political opportunism — which … ultimately contributed to the abandonment of Apartheid.’

Chain Reaction

‘Superbly researched and told with deft style, this is essential reading for anyone with a passion for sport, politics, or history.’

Peter FitzSimons

A vivid story of the men and women who took a stand when sport mixed with politics

In 1971, when the racially selected all-white Springbok rugby team toured Australia, we became a nation at war with ourselves. There was bloodshed as tens of thousands of anti-Apartheid campaigners clashed with governments, police, and rugby fans — who were given free reign to assault protestors. Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen declared a State of Emergency. Prime minister William McMahon called the Wallabies who refused to play ‘national disgraces’. Barbed wire ringed the great rugby grounds to stop protestors invading the field.

Pitched Battle recreates what became of the most rancorous periods in modern Australian history — a time of courage, pain, faith, fanaticism, and political opportunism — which made heroes of the Wallabies who refused to play, played a key role in the later political careers of Peter Beattie, Meredith Burgmann, and Peter Hain, and ultimately contributed to the abandonment of Apartheid.

‘Artful in its arrangement and humane in its spirit … Honouring the moral actions of its protagonists, it also confirms the efficacy of determined and creative resistance to social wrong.’

Sean Scalmer, The Saturday Age

‘It was frightening and chaotic, but we knew we were right. This is exactly the way it happened. Larry Writer takes us into the heart of the great human-rights campaign of the era.’

Meredith Burgmann

View all reviews

‘A remarkably detailed and wonderfully enthralling account of Australian sport’s bloodiest confrontation. Larry Writer expertly skewers the lingering myth that politics and sport don't mix.’

Richard Hinds

Inside Sport

‘A fascinating account of important Australian sporting and political history.’

Nick Goldie, Queenbeyean Bulletin

Dave Martus, Books+Publishing

Chain Reaction

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 234mm × 153mm

Extent:336pp

ISBN (13):9781925321616

RRP:$35.00

Pub date:3 Oct 2016

Rights Held: World

High-res cover:Download Image

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Larry Writer

Larry Writer is a Sydney-based author whose books include Dangerous Games: Australia at the 1936 Nazi Olympics; Razor (adapted into the hit TV series Underbelly: Razor); Never Before, Never Again; Pleasure and Pain (the official biography of Chrissy Amphlett); and Bumper: the life and times of Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell.

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We publish books that matter — narrative and literary nonfiction on important topics, and the best of local, international, and translated fiction.

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Pitched Battle

in the frontline of the 1971 Springbok tour of Australia
Larry Writer

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