Changi Brownlow
This is the moving, powerful and surprising story of a group of Australian POWs who organise an Australian Rules Football competition under the worst conditions imaginable - inside Changi prison. Complete with tribunal, selection panel, umpires and coaches, the final game of the one and only season was between ‘Victoria’ and the ‘Rest of Australia’, which attracted 10 000 spectators, and a unique Brownlow Medal was awarded in this unlikely setting under the curious gaze of Japanese prison guards.
Meet the main characters behind this spectacle: Peter Chitty, the farm hand from Snowy River country with unfathomable physical and mental fortitude, and one of eight in his immediate family who volunteered to fight and serve in WW2; ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn, the Brownlow-medal winning little man with the huge heart; and ‘Weary’ Dunlop, the courageous doctor, who cares for the POWs as they endure malnutrition, disease and often inhuman treatment.
Changi Brownlow is a story of courage and the invincibility of the human spirit, and highlights not only the Australian love of sport, but its power to offer consolation in times of extreme hardship.