Footy country

Victorian photographer Cory White admits he was never much of a football player as a kid, but he loved the community he found in footy.

Story Ken Eastwood  Photos Cory White

“I love country football and watching local footy – I’ll just take a beer or a coffee down and just watch and listen to what’s going on around the boundary. I love that intimacy of being close to the game and standing right next to the bench and listening to those conversations.”

So, when Telstra asked Cory (who has been “obsessed” with photography since he was 14 and mainly works in advertising) to take photographs for a footy-focused advertising campaign, he amassed so many experiences and such a body of work that he convinced the company to also pay for a weighty, hard-cover book. With photos taken at clubs from Kalgoorlie to Darwin and down to Tasmania, Footy Country is a photorealistic immersion into country footy clubs – from the volunteers working in the tuckshop to the coach balling out the players in the sheds. “Ninety-eight per cent of the book doesn’t feature football in play. It’s about that connection between community, towns and sport, and how important these clubs are for regional communities.”

In Far North Queensland, the photos feature some rugby league clubs and games with intense physicality. “There were so many big hits and echoing tackles. It just sounded like broken bones to me.”

Cory says in many country games, players filling in might not have played for a while, or are recovering from an injury, but everyone is willing to sacrifice. “A lot of these people are working on farms and have physical jobs during the week, and they go out and play football, putting everything on the line.

“If an alien landed in Australia and saw the white sticks pointing to the sky, they might assume they were some kind of meeting place for a religion, a place of worship sacred to the people of this land. And they would be right.”

Footy Country is published by Hardie Grant and retails for $65.