Greg Baum
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Gregory Martin Baum (born 14th December 1959) is an Australian sports journalist and football writer.
He was born in Boronia, Melbourne, Victoria, to Joan and Martin Baum, as the first of five children. He attended St Joseph's Primary School, Boronia, and later St Joseph's High School, Ferntree Gully, graduating in 1975. He began work on the local paper, the Boronia Advertiser, as a politics and sports correspondent, in 1976, as well as attending a night-course in journalism (which he never completed).
After a number of his articles on the local football competition were republished in The Sun-Herald, a major newspaper in Melbourne, he was offered a job by that newspaper. He became a full time sportswriter for the paper, and in this time travelled to Europe and India on a number of occasions. He also married Jacinta Maria Tobin.
Greg and Jacinta's first son, Nicholas James Baum, was born on the 31st May 1989, and a week later he was offered a job by Fairfax Publications at The Age, the Sun's main rival. In 1990, his long-time love, Collingwood Football Club, won their first VFL premiership for thirty-two years. The couple had two more children, Joshua Gregory and Maximilian Thomas, in the intervening years, before ultimately divorcing in 1998.
Greg has continued to write for The Age, where he is now Chief Football Reporter, as well as writing for the Guardian of London and editing the Australian edition of Wisden. He has received a number of awards for his work, from the MCG Trust, the Victorian Boxing Association and the Australian Press Association. In 2006, he attended the FIFA World Cup, which he names as one of the highlights of his career.
