Bloodbath: The 1945 Vfl Grand Final

The 1945 VFL Grand Final Carlton and South Melbourne was Melbourne's first major sporting event after the end of World War II. The game was advertised as 'the Victory Grand Final', and signalled an end to global violence and bloodshed. Ironically, those are the characteristics that will forever be associated with the game that has entered the folklore of Aussie Rules football as 'the Bloodbath'. The game also featured a cast of extraordinary characters, including Jack 'Basher' Williams, 'gentleman' Jim Cleary, Bob Chitty (who was to star as Ned Kelly in a major Australian film), the young Ken Hands, and the mercurial Laurie Nash, who was perhaps the greatest all-round sportsman Australia has ever produced. What was the cause of the conflict, who was responsible for the violence, and why did football's greatest spectacle degenerate into bloodshed? Ian Shaw has interviewed surviving players and researched contemporary accounts to produce this masterful account of the background, the players, and the game that came together to produce on to the most infamous days in Australian sporting history.Shaw, Ian W. is the author of 'Bloodbath: The 1945 Vfl Grand Final', published 2006 under ISBN 9781920769970 and ISBN 1920769978.