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William Hammersley, sporting journalist and i857 Victorian cricket eleven captain, was a colonial mover and shaker. He was, said an obituary, the best known sportsman in Australia. Generally supporting all the manly' sports, Hammersley helped to codify Australian Rules football, pushed the Albert Park lagoon as a site for rowing and yachting, first used the term 'test' match, advocated the introduction of the totalisator, started the athletics races with his pistol, encouraged the introduction of the Maribyrnong Plate, moved to get the first fence erected around the MCG, urged the VRC to award a gold cup for the Melbourne Cup winner, and used much ink trying to make racing honest for the betting public and to prevent the growing professionalism of Australian cricket.

Hammersley knew racecourse proprietor William Samuel Cox, sculler and university professor Martin Irving. Daredevil rider Adam Lindsay Gordon, Argus journalist and football founder James Thompson, master of the hunt George Watson,'king of the ring' Joe Thompson, police commissioner Captain Standish, gambler and secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club Dick Wardill, footballing Scotch College classics master Tom Smith, iconoclast Marcus Clarke, indefatigable Secretary of the VRC Robert Bagot, Victorias first baronet William Clarke, importer of rabbits and hares Tom Austin, poet Henry Kendall, horse auctioneer Richard Tattersall, sporting entrepreneur George Coppin, the restaurateurs responsible for bringing the first English cricket team to Australian shores Spiers and Pond, the manager of the 1878 Australian cricket team to tour England Jack Conway, and many others of the cricket, football, sporting and horseracing people who lived in Melbourne in the 1860s and 1870s.

And he knew well the cousins, Victorian cricketer par excellence, Tom Wills, and Melbourne Football Club captain and champion runner of the colony, Colden Harrison, arguably the two best sportsmen of the time. Here the three of them are portrayed busily pursuing their lives and sporting and political battles in meticulously researched detail and fascinating anecdote.