From Merger Meeting to Premiership Dynasty

Gene Simmons

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Thread starter #1

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Matt Stevic

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#3
Thank you Scott.
Thank you Dicker.
Thank you Dermott.

Thank you for sticking up for us against the oppressive Oakley regime. Not even counting our other 60k+ members, the Hawks have given me so much joy over the years. It boggles the mind why someone would be so hell bent on removing us.
 

Ram-Man

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#4
Good read ... extremely debatable that C.Judd would have made a world class 800m runner. The amount of times AFL footballers are referred to as having the ability to walk into Olympic Finals by commentators is silly. One is a domestic competition and the other is a world wide sport.
 

Thaihawk

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#7
From premiership dynasty to merger meeting would be a far more damning read

What were they thinking ?

One took 18 years the other 3
Agree Pessimistic. I was one in disbelief of how our great club of the 70s & 80s had fallen so low that we needed to be taken over to survive.
 

Pessimistic

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#8
Agree Pessimistic. I was one in disbelief of how our great club of the 70s & 80s had fallen so low that we needed to be taken over to survive.
There were other things in play. Merger mania from the corporate world spilling over. Theyd also signed a deal with us as waverley tenants for a couple of decades and then the "long term strategic thinkers" decided they wanted out of waverley and were also corrupt enough to desstroy one of their best brands to achieve it.

Jealousy would have played a part too
 

Abasi

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Moderator #9
I was waiting to board a plain in Kuala Lumpar a year or two back, and got talking to two other Australians who were Saints supporters, they asked me who I followed and their faces lit up when I told them Hawthorn, which was a bit surreal.

They went on to tell me all about how they had become friends with Ian Dicker and what a fantastic and lovely man he was. I can't remember the exact details now, but he had given their family a massive sum of money to try and help them get back on their feet, as they'd lost a daughter or son in the fires of black Saturday.

I already held him in the highest regard for how he pitched in and kept us afloat, but it was so nice to hear that even now he's still helping others.

Absolute legend that bloke.
 

Thaihawk

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#10
There were other things in play. Merger mania from the corporate world spilling over. Theyd also signed a deal with us as waverley tenants for a couple of decades and then the "long term strategic thinkers" decided they wanted out of waverley and were also corrupt enough to desstroy one of their best brands to achieve it.

Jealousy would have played a part too
Thing was it was never intended to be a merger. It was a takeover, and Ridley would have finished up with the top job in the AFL.
 

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Davo23

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#12
Interesting to read how close we were to almost getting Montagna and Mitchell in the 2001 draft. Things have still worked out amazingly for us but you can imagine having had someone like Leigh Montagna running around for us for the last 13 seasons!



Would have given our lawyers some extra work!
 

A Diakos

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#16
Milney grew up a hawthorn supporter and wore #44 because of john platen

In any case back to thread topic, this was a very good article from the Herald Sun and worth the time to read it
 

Off The Couch

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#21
Its a great read
So many different people involved in bringing the club to where it is today - dicker, scott, dermie, dunstall, buckenara, Russell, clarko to name but a few.

My favourite bit

The Herald Sun charts the nine key moments that turned this club around and turned it into the most powerful club in Australia.



Eddie just choked on his cornflakes
 

HolyWars

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#22
At the time of the merger meeting I was only 10 years old. My best friend was a Melbourne supporter and at the time, with the possibility of going to the footy with my best mate more often, I wanted the merger. How young idiotic minds work.

Please don't hit me.:$
 

1888

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#23
I was ambivalent at first, but then when I saw the proposed merger "jumper" on the front page of the Herald Sun (as Don Scott said that fateful night at the Camberwell Civic Centre, "A velcro Hawk on a Melbourne guernsey!!!"), I turned virulently anti-merger. Donated some pocket money to Operation Payback, chanted "NO MERGER!!!" at the Round 21 St Kilda game, followed the "merger" game on radio very nervously, punched the air when we won by a point, then waited nervously for about 20 hours until North beat Richmond to confirm our spot in the eight. Then after the narrow defeat in the Sydney final, I was again a nervous wreck for the next 9 days. Would I still have a club to follow post September 16?

Was still a povo uni. student at the time. Wasn't until I finished uni. that I finally bought a membership (oddly enough in 1999, the last season at Waverley). Had the vote gone the other way, I would have debated loudly with myself during the 1996/97 off-season whether to
1) switch allegiances to another club (I don't think I could possibly have supported the "merged" entity.)
2) continue to go to the footy but not support anyone, or
3) quit following AFL altogether.

Thank **** I never had to make that choice. (I have bought other club memberships in the years since, but have never continued with them like I have with Hawthorn.)
 

Agent Smith

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#24
The wake-up call Hawks fans had to have to become Hawks supporters.

The funniest thing was the AFL looking at membership numbers at the time, where we had 11,000 or so and Melbourne around the same... so therefore a merged club would have over 20,000 members!! Wow, it gave a clear indication of the kind of insane morons that worked at the AFL that didn't live in the real world.
 
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