source : the age
I like former Hawthorn great and part-time troublemaker Don Scott, and I suspect he likes me.
As with all legitimate eccentrics, he doesn’t see himself as eccentric at all. I have found him warm and generous. Others find him contrary and stubborn. Scott is one of those guys who occasionally lacks a filter between the brain box and the voice box, meaning he tends to speak his mind.
The last time I saw him, he was sitting at an outside table at an eastern suburban coffee shop, he greeted me with, “John Silvester, you look three-quarters dead.”
This was surprising as I was feeling quite sprightly after my skinny latte and toasted mushroom sandwich.
Scotty played 302 games for Hawthorn, and held the premiership cup three times, twice as captain. Yet, his greatest contribution was off the field where his tendency to swim against the tide made him Hawthorn’s Winston Churchill, turning the club’s darkest hour into its defining moment.
It is 30 years since a merger between Hawthorn and Melbourne was announced, including a new jumper, and the added bribe of a playing list guaranteed to succeed. The AFL wanted to reduce Melbourne clubs in pursuit of a national competition with the struggling Fitzroy already swallowed by the Brisbane Bears.
On the field Hawthorn was a mega-power. Over the previous 25 years, it had won eight premierships and made finals 20 times.
This had not turned into revenue with the financial members stuck at about 11,000. Truth was, the club was broke. If it didn’t merge, it would have been trading while insolvent leading to board members being prosecuted. The AFL had a $6 million merger carrot dangling in front of them.
The league bosses thought the Demons/Hawks merger would quietly succeed because their supporters were seen as “reasonable”, with the joke that Demons supporters cheer their team while listening to the games on the car radio travelling to the snow. While Hawthorn supporters, spoiled by success, would accept the merger if it meant more silverware.
If you took the emotion out of it the merger made sense. Melbourne, with MCC backing, had money but hadn’t won a flag for more than 30 years; Hawthorn won football games but was debt ridden. But this was football, and you can’t take the emotion out of it. That was the AFL’s biggest mistake.
Enter Scott, first with quiet steps that became a thunderous march joined by thousands. Estranged from the club for years, he became its saviour.
Good friend and fellow Hawthorn tragic Channel Ten journalist Stephen Quartermain invited me to the Hawthorn past players’ room at Glenferrie Oval for a discussion with a group of former players and media types. It began as a question – was the merger the only choice, or should supporters have the chance to put their money where their cheering mouths had been?
There were about 10 former players from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, including premiership heroes, Scott, Leon Rice, Ian Bremner, Mick Porter and Dermott Brereton.
On the media side were reporters, including Ashley Browne. Keen on a yarn, Browne suggested this embryonic group be given a name.
Overnight, I thought of what in Hawthorn’s history could inspire supporters who had refused to open their wallets to buy a membership, to now open them to save the club.
Many say the Hawthorn-Geelong 1989 grand final was the greatest played – a gladiatorial contest the Hawks won by six points, thanks largely to the improbable last-minute mark by fullback Chris Langford (remember that name) who managed to levitate and steal the ball from the outstretched hands of the leaping Gary Ablett Sr. (who had already kicked nine goals).
At half-time, Hawthorn coach Allan Jeans told the story of a boy who bought a cheap pair of shoes that he would soon regret when they fell apart. He then urged his battered players to pay the price or regret it forever.
I suggested the name “Operation Payback”, with the message that the club had given us so much, and it was time to repay that debt. We also took the club’s historic motto, Spectemur Agendo – “Let us be known by our actions”.
The AFL pretended to be neutral but funded a $250,000 pro-merger PR campaign.
But Payback had Richard Amos, a former reserves player and executive with Royce Communications and a mate of Scott. Payback was even given office space within Glenferrie Oval.
There were mass rallies, rousing speeches and plenty of donations. Supporters would arrive unannounced to offer their services.
But no one knew what the outcome would be.
There was the merger match that couldn’t be scripted – the last round of the year – Melbourne v Hawthorn at the MCG with the Hawks needing to win. A night game with 64,000 supporters – many waving No Merger signs.
Hawthorn was expected to win easily, but Melbourne, sensing this could be its last game as a standalone club, was bold, brilliant and brave.
Jason Dunstall for the Hawks kicked 10 including his 100th for the year. David Neitz for Melbourne kicked six and marked everything.
In the dying minute with Hawthorn one point up, the ball was kicked to the waiting Neitz who momentarily stumbled giving Chris Langford (remember him) the slightest chance to spoil. He arrived agonisingly late, jumped off his non-preferred leg and flew through the air like Astro Boy punching the ball 40 metres to safety.
As he walked off, he removed his jumper and waved it to the crowd. That was the moment I knew the merger was as dead as Julius Caesar.
There was still to be a vote, and both Melbourne and Hawthorn agreed to have separate public meetings where both sides of the argument could be explained.
The Hawthorn board sought expert advice on the security risks. The head of the Victoria Police Asian squad, Steve “Coach” Pierce, a Hawk supporter and friend of board member Frank Buckle, pointed out the risks, then liaised with Camberwell police.
What the crowd that packed the Camberwell Civic Centre didn’t know was there was a sergeant and constable from the station in the wings of the stage to usher the board out if it got ugly.
It got more than ugly.
“There was passion and crazy anger. It was very close to anarchy,” recalls Pierce. “[President] Brian Coleman mouthed the words ‘where’s the police?’ If they had come out at that stage, it would have inflamed the crowd.”
As the level of anger rose, Pierce said to me, “I’ve got two [police] here. If the crowd storm the stage, come with me and block them while we try to get them [the board] out.”
When Payback started, I spoke to my father, a retired policeman, who advised me to stay out of it as it was likely to turn violent. I imagined him watching the television to see his only son throwing chairs (that was my desperate plan) at the crowd at the Camberwell Civic Centre.
“You said you would talk to Scotty to ask him to calm the crowd. I thought it was a good idea as I wasn’t looking forward to getting punched in the back of the head,” says Pierce.
I went to Scott who was about to speak. His eyes were set as he feared the vote had been fixed by the corporates.
I asked him to look around. The crowd was booing and chanting.
One was on the second level trying to find a position to spit at the board. I said that if he inflamed them, there would be violence.
I asked him to calm the mob by telling them the board may be wrong in wanting the merger, but they were Hawthorn people acting in good faith.
I suspect Scott, always his own man, had already reached the same conclusion.
When he took to the stage the crowd exploded. He remained silent, reminding them it was good manners to be quiet when someone was speaking.
“These gentlemen deserve a little more respect than what you are giving them,” he said, regaining control with that one statement. “Remember, it is ‘we’ once we leave here, even though we are having a confrontation tonight.”
It was a masterstroke.
There was a second. Scott had the proposed merger jumper, a Demons guernsey with a hawk logo. He ripped off the hawk that was attached by velcro. It was the perfect act to show this was not an equal merger but a Melbourne takeover.
“That changed the mood,” says Pierce. “The crowd anger went from the board to the jumper. They had something new to hate. I believe that is why it didn’t turn into a riot.”
Scott recalls, “I have never seen anything like it,” adding he now understands how a dictator can stir mass hysteria from followers.
He says an ex-player in a wheelchair threatened to leap to his feet and punch someone from the opposite side.
While Scott was the perfect wartime prime minister, it was Ian Dicker as president who began the rebuild.
Today, Hawthorn owns a $100 million football complex and has 87,000 members.
Since the AFL masterplan was thwarted, Hawthorn have made the finals 16 times, with four flags.
