The Melbourne Hawks

[wizardwaffle]

I was asked by someone on the Footy Graphics page to see the document that I had on the Melbourne Hawks merger. This document came out in the days when documents were still on paper, the 1990's. So I have scanned the document in so everyone can read it.

Front Page


Pages 2 & 3


Pages 4 & 5


Page 6 & 7


Back Page

 

[PykeDream]

Obviously hadn't bothered to think about the fact that they might just clash with Adelaide.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Wow the Hawks dodged a bullet there. Thank Christ for Don Scott etc hey…

Ripping the Velcro hawk off the Melbourne jumper was the perfect piece of theatre.

 

[IanW]

Wow the Hawks dodged a bullet there. Thank Christ for Don Scott etc hey…

Ripping the Velcro hawk off the Melbourne jumper was the perfect piece of theatre.

The AFL as a whole dodged a bullet thanks to Don Scott. The failure of this merger, together with the chaos of the Super League War, were the two key moments in Australian Rules becoming the dominant sporting code in Australia.

 

[zachary]

Wow the Hawks dodged a bullet there. Thank Christ for Don Scott etc hey…

Ripping the Velcro hawk off the Melbourne jumper was the perfect piece of theatre.

I was there that night at the Camberwell Civic Centre - one of the best nights of my life, almost as good as a premiership. It was packed, but a mate and I managed to get in because he knew one of the guys from Price Waterhouse on the door. I remember everyone standing on the seats chanting. The mood was defiant but good natured -there was never any question of any of the members even thinking of supporting the merger. We were there to save the club. When Scotty tore off the velcro Hawk the place went nuts.
Brian Coleman and the board got booed, but in a good way. There was alot of sympathy for him and the position he was dumped in. The guy who should have got booed was Geoff Lord - it's great to see the back of that guy twice.
In a way the whole thing revitalised the club. We had 12,000 members in 1996, which jumped to 20,000 the year after.
No one would imagined on that night that 15 years later we would have 50,000 plus members and another flag under our belt.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

I was watching That Was The Season That Was 1996 the other day - there wasn't too much on the merger but comments from Mike Sheahan were interesting that Hawthorn was in much worse shape than Melbourne (financially). 15 years on and Hawthorn are a true powerhouse of the comp while Melbourne has only just eradicated its debt and finally moved on from Junction Oval. Hawthorn has a flag while Melbourne hasn't made the finals since 2006.

I know the Melbourne vote was marginally in favour of the merger however as others have previously pointed out this would never have got passed a court ruling due to the fixing that went on behind the scenes with the proxies etc. I think it was something like ~4700 pro votes to ~4200 against votes. Does anyone know what the votes on the Hawks side were? Something like ~6000 no to ~2000 yes if I remember.

Also I wasn't at Dallas Brooks Hall that night (was too young) but did watch parts on TV and I can tell you the Melbourne scene was a lot different to the Hawthorn one described above. Club legend Ian "Tiger" Ridley was almost howled off the stage and judging by the footage it seemed there could have been violence that night from the stereotypically docile Melbourne crowd.

 

[matty_hawk]

The final bullet point is humorous under the heading;
Both clubs conducted in depth reviews.
"anticipated pressure for player free agency in 1999.."

15 years on and its still coming.

 

[LANGFORDandSON]

I have the same document in amongst many others (my $1000 donation receipt, fully refundable on the event of a merge is one of them), the contrast between this professionally designed and printed color foldout that the club sent out and the A5 faded photocopy that Scotty sent out is massive.

Didn't really matter in the end thank god.

 

[IanW]

I have the same document in amongst many others (my $1000 donation receipt, fully refundable on the event of a merge is one of them), the contrast between this professionally designed and printed color foldout that the club sent out and the A5 faded photocopy that Scotty sent out is massive.

Didn't really matter in the end thank god.

Any chance of getting that A5 faded photocopy scanned ?

 

[Ice-Wolf]

Is there a reason the powers that be didn't try merging Hawthorn with St Kilda or were they afraid of creating a monster in the South-Eastern suburbs.

 

[cartel]

Interesting document!

If the other Melbourne clubs effectively blocked the Fitzroy/North merge, would Melbourne/Hawthorn be shot down at the final hurdle anyway? They would have been by far the bigger monster.

Thankfully, this didn't happen - disgusting it had to happen to Fitzroy.

 

[Byron_Clanger]

That's incredible, I still remember when this was all going down, I'm glad they didn't merge so Melbourne could keep their 100 years of history, same with Hawthorn and theirs

 

[Pessimistic]

I think the clubs had endorsed the dawks to keep 4 out of 5 players by ranking.

Plenty of people had 'merged' teams in the papers but the team they had was 75% players who would retire soon

The polling on the way in to camberwell was 95% no - so the scott speech was just theatre. In fact the no vote turned out to be 90% from the venue so perhaps some people had swung back because of the ill treatment of club legends

Since the merge hawks have been largely solid (except scott. lord challenges) whereas infighting seems to be the norm at melbourne - throw in animosity to the MCC and its a potent mix.

Thje non refundable donation idea was a stroke of genius. othersies the AFL would have run the merge AND got thir grubby p[awa son that money.

As I recall the AFL presented the clubns with a bill for the pro merge campaign - 200k so they did get 20% of our 'donations' we paid for an expensive crap campaign (have a look at the club song on the pamphlet) which ewas defeated by a shoestring budget.


Another thing which helped was the social club being a seperate entity so the lord and coote regimes couldnt get hold of that capital.

Once dicker came on board the club was our security for loans to keep going. We had no chance opf being guarantored b the AFL - like half the clubs have been since.


Another thing shits me too. we were told recently we couldnt have an uneven number of teams so had to habve two new ones at once.

Bck then it would have been 15 (port replaced fitzroy) so they would have eiter admitted another team from somewhere - OR chased another merger - most likely

 

[LongBomb]

Any chance you could post it at a readable size?

 

[SupportMe]

All I can think of is that my copy of The Hard Way would be more valuable right now if the merger went through.

In all seriousness it's fascinating to see stuff like this.

EDIT: Right-click and select "Open link in new tab" to view it easier. You can also click the magnifying glass to zoom in even more.

 

[Ugottabjokin]

I was at the town hall that night as well. Didn't get in but listened to the speeches outside on the lawn via the megaphones set up. It was pretty feral at times and i remember as club legends walking in the door who had come out in favour of the merger getting booed.

I voted no along with my mates and went to the pub afterwards and had a meal and ended up on a table sat next to another group of Hawthorn supporters who had voted yes. It was a pretty tense meal and some not nice words exchanged. We were shitting ourselves thinking how many others were like these idiots.

Many years down the track and thanks to Don Scott initially and then Ian Dicker for first avoiding the merger and then putting the club on it's path to where we are today.

Geoff Lord should have his life membership revoked for being a detriment to the club rather than a supporter.

One of my greatest memories was playing Melbourne in the final round that year at the MCG and winning by 1 point and Chris Langford walking off waving his jumper over his head. That win got us into the finals. I was going mental and abusing every Melbourne supporter within earshot. Nice to see his son at the Hawks now as well.

 

[jethro11]

Can's believe that was fifteen years ago.

A hawthorn fan who voted yes would feel pretty bad seeing how far their club has come in 15 years when he/she wanted a merger.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Interesting document!

If the other Melbourne clubs effectively blocked the Fitzroy/North merge, would Melbourne/Hawthorn be shot down at the final hurdle anyway? They would have been by far the bigger monster.

Thankfully, this didn't happen - disgusting it had to happen to Fitzroy.

The concern with anything involving North was that they were an on-field powerhouse at the time, and the super-team it would immediately create.

Melbourne and Hawthorn were far from that, so using the same logic, the same level of concern probably wouldn’t have existed.

Incredibly short-sighted approach.

 

[BLUES9898]

Can't Believe that was 15 years ago

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Many years down the track and thanks to Don Scott initially and then Ian Dicker for first avoiding the merger and then putting the club on it's path to where we are today.

This is the popular misconception I've been trying to correct over the years with little effect. The non-merger drive was the brain child of Ian Dicker and he co-opted Don Scott and Dermott Brereton as greats of the club as mouthpieces.

Although he would never say so publicly, I know for a fact that Ian Dicker is frustrated that Scott is the one who gets the credit.

The disappointing thing is some of my favourite people at Hawthorn, Peter Hudson, Brian Coleman, Allan Jeans, etc, urged the "yes" option and for awhile it divided the club before sanity prevailed.

 

[Pessimistic]

I still dont trust tassiphiles Peter Hudson and Jeff Kennett.

Surely they would realise from that night in 1996 that we can only be pushed so far.


Also 1996 cant be underestimated for its galvanising effect on our club. Although we were rowdy I suspect that many, like me, vowed never to be so complacent again. If we had the 20,000 adult members before 1996 - we wouldnt be in danger of merging.

 

[St 07]

Has anyone tried ringing the number? Can we kickstart this again?

 

[Roddy]

I'm glad it didn't happen, coz obviously I love my Hawks, but it probably would have become a pretty damn strong side, and probably still would be today. You could safely bet that the Melbourne Hawks would have more than the one flag that the Hawks and Dees have between them since then...

 

[theyellowsash]

wow who the hell thought that a red/yellow penis on the front of the shorts was a good idea???

 

[Demonheart]

I was watching That Was The Season That Was 1996 the other day - there wasn't too much on the merger but comments from Mike Sheahan were interesting that Hawthorn was in much worse shape than Melbourne (financially). 15 years on and Hawthorn are a true powerhouse of the comp while Melbourne has only just eradicated its debt and finally moved on from Junction Oval. Hawthorn has a flag while Melbourne hasn't made the finals since 2006.

I know the Melbourne vote was marginally in favour of the merger however as others have previously pointed out this would never have got passed a court ruling due to the fixing that went on behind the scenes with the proxies etc. I think it was something like ~4700 pro votes to ~4200 against votes. Does anyone know what the votes on the Hawks side were? Something like ~6000 no to ~2000 yes if I remember.

Also I wasn't at Dallas Brooks Hall that night (was too young) but did watch parts on TV and I can tell you the Melbourne scene was a lot different to the Hawthorn one described above. Club legend Ian "Tiger" Ridley was almost howled off the stage and judging by the footage it seemed there could have been violence that night from the stereotypically docile Melbourne crowd.

I was there that night, I was up in the balcony to the right of the main stage. The hatred and vitirol directed at the Board was intense and a couple of times it threatened to escalate completely out of control. I remember the shock of hearing the result because the vast majority of the crowd were completely against it, Gutnick (for all his faults) & Dixon, were brilliant.

So many things went on that have been forgotten, the proxy issues, the wealthy board member who purchase a large number of memberships in the names of his employees and then used them towards the pro-merger vote, all the people locked out of the hall who were unable to vote...

It was a truly amazing night, and I have no doubt that if Hawthorn had of voted for it then the anti-merger MFC group would have been successful with the court challenge.

Of course, the trolls conveniently miss all that.