Martin Flanagan - Australian Journalist and Author (24.06.2026)

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**Mark Duffield** (0:30)
Welcome back to Duff and the Doctor coming to you thanks to Blackline. That's B-L-A-K Line, Aboriginal owned business delivering signage, print, promotional products and creative services with cultural integrity and impact. We have on the line one of my favourite people in football, in journalism and in literature in general in Australia, Martin Flanagan, the Tasmanian journalist and author. He's telling everybody he's working on what he calls his last book. I think his last book is a little bit like John Farnham's last tour, but we will see.
Martin joins us now. Martin, welcome.

**Martin Flanagan** (1:08)
Thank you very much. Thank you for that welcome.

**Mark Duffield** (1:12)
So mate, your last book, what is it? What is it about? Is it really your last book?

**Martin Flanagan** (1:19)
Well, the problem with writing books mate is fewer and fewer people are reading them. I think the percentage of young Americans in our reach of pleasure is down to 12%.
So the bookmark, it ain't what it used to be. So that's one big problem. But I came back to Tassie six years ago, and I started following Country Footy, and I really enjoy it. Follow Longford in the Northern Tasmanian Football Association. It's wonderful, but you can't come back and follow Country Footy and not be made aware of the fact that the game's traditional base, at least here in Tasmania, is shrinking. And I don't see how the game continues as an elite sport in Australia, if grassroots footy is lost.
And so I'm trying to write a book which challenges, particularly the AFL commission, not the AFL bureaucracy, but the AFL commission, that this is a major policy issue that they have to address.

**Mark Duffield** (2:21)
So, is this a case, do you think, of the population exodus from rural areas towards city areas, or do you think it's a policy problem for the AFL, Flanners?

**Martin Flanagan** (2:32)
Well, that's definitely a factor. There's no question of that.
But, yeah, at the same time, yeah, there's all sorts of policy issues involved in it. And we just have to discuss it. We have to find intelligent ways of trying to combat it. The first time I became really aware of it was we went to watch Longford, my mate Gordie and I, and we turned up and the seniors were playing in the reserve slot. And then they played the under-18s as the main game.
Because young men down here are not as interested in footy as they used to be. And it seems that the real strong old working class clubs that, you know, in the real tough areas where footy was just sacred law, they're the ones who are now really struggling to put under-18 terms. And if there's no under-18s, there's no future.

**Mark Duffield** (3:27)
Yep, absolutely. The football team from my hometown, which is West Arthur playing out of Darkin, they are now playing under the banner of the Wage and Bulldogs.
And I'll actually be going to a function in a week or so, which will celebrate West Arthur's last Premiership team, which was back in 1976 And there are some concerns that this will be the last function of the West Arthur Football Club ever held. So this is a national phenomenon and it is a problem. Do you have any thoughts on what the AFL can do to address it and try and reverse it?

**Martin Flanagan** (4:04)
The most important thing, I think, is that there needs to be representatives of grassroots footy on the AFL commission. The problem with the AFL for me is that the AFL, what we call the AFL is actually the bureaucracy. The government is supposed to be the AFL commission and we never hear from them. We hear from the AFL bureaucracy all the time and I had a few dealings with them over the years, where I gradually lost faith in them as the custodians of the game.
So I feel there's got to be some sort of grassroots push to restore the balance. We've got to get people who, all these major decisions that are made all the time, for example, last year in Victoria, the AFL just suddenly decided to hold a preliminary final, I think it was, that coincided with the country footy grand final days. So they robbed country footy of their day and with all that that means in the life of the club. Those are the sorts of things where the AFL has to start acting with a hell of a lot more consciousness of what we need to nurture this game at the grassroots.