The Red Fox

Book excerpt: Norm Smith is arguably the greatest Australian Football coach in history. Smith - who, in 1996, was selected as the coach of the Australian Football League's Team of the Century - led the Melbourne Demons to a staggering six premierships from 1955 to 1964. When it came to football, he was a hard man, brutally honest to his players and an utterly ruthless and fearsome disciplinarian, but this was offset by a gentler, charitable side of his nature which was rarely seen in public. This is his story, and secondarily that of his older brother and fellow coach Len Smith, from their childhood in tough, working-class Northcote during the Depression; Norm as a childhood supporter of Collingwood, the club he would conquer many times over as a man; through his distinguished playing career at Melbourne where he built a reputation as the most unselfish player in the game; his first coaching job at Fitzroy; his triumphant reign at Melbourne, detailing his relationship with his ‘foster son' Ron Barassi, his friendly coaching rivalry with his brother, and his controversial sacking and reinstatement in 1965; to his last coaching job at South Melbourne, which in 1970 he lifted to its first finals series in 25 years, and culminating in his premature death at the age of 57