What initially began as an archiving and restoration of Tom’s own scrapbooks and photos, soon turned into a three-year journey and the creation of this book.

TOM’S SPORTING LIFE combines hundreds of restored photos and newspaper clippings with Tom’s personal, hand-written memoirs.

Tom (no not the pro surfer!) first dabbled in cricket and basketball before finding his great successes in Australian Rules Football. This book details his adventures with the Carroll family boys at Ganmain, NSW, winning back-to-back Premierships before moving on to the city, Melbourne, to play in the VFL where he earned acclaim as a leading goal kicker with Carlton. After three seasons Tom returned home to Ganmain to become a successful playing coach.

In addition to Tom’s history-making career with Carlton Football Club, this book is sprinkled with plenty of the era’s local history (Ganmain and region) including basketball, football premierships (including the 1964 nail-biter), the ‘Carroll’s versus the rest’ match, Ganmain Grong-Grong Matong under 19’s from the 1980s, plus an interview with Tom covering life in Melbourne and his recollections of the Carlton days.

After the first edition was so warmly received, we decided to expand the book and print a limited run of copies which are unfortunately now sold out. We hope to print some more is 2021.

Running at 128 pages the book is a softcover and any expressions of interest can be sent via the form below.