embroiled in controversy, he seemed to lack an understanding of how his words and actions could repeatedly get him into trouble. His obsession with sport was such that he showed little interest in anything else. Through his research, journalist Martin Flanagan concluded that Wills was "utterly bereft of insight into himself", and football historian Gillian Hibbins described him as "an overbearing and undisciplined young man who tended to blame others for his troubles and was more interested in winning a game than in respecting sporting rules." Wills' family and peers, though angered by his misbehaviour, frequently forgave him. It seems unlikely that he sought popular favour, but his strong egalitarian streak helped make him a folk hero. This widespread affection for him, coupled with an understanding of his waywardness, found expression in colonial mottoes and drinking songs, one sung in part: "I have a weakness, I confess — it is for Tommy Wills". While his manner of speech was breezy and laconic, Wills, as a young adult back in Australia, developed a peculiar stream of consciousness style of writing that sometimes defied syntax and grammar. His letters are laced with puns, oblique classical and Shakespearean allusions, and droll asides, such as this one about Melbourne in a letter to his brother Cedric: "Everything is dull here, but people are kept alive by people getting shot at in the streets". The overall impression is one of "a mind full of energy and histrionic ideas without a centre". In one of his borderline "thought disordered" letters, it is evident that at times he entered a state of depersonalisation: "I do not know what I am standing on ... when anyone speaks to me I cannot for the life of me make out what they are talking about—everything seems so curious." In 1884, Hammersley compared Wills' incipient madness and fiery glare to that of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Australian bush poet. Wills' mental instability is a source for speculation: epilepsy has been suggested as a possible cause of his perplexed mental state, and a variant of bipolar illness may account for his disjointed thinking and flowery, confused writings. In 1923, the MCC discovered Wills' old cricket cap and put it on display in the Block Arcade, prompting Horace Wills to reflect: "My brother was the nicest man I ever met. Though his nature was care-free, amounting almost to wildness, he had the sweetest