Chapter 6: On Hawthorn (Always Hawthorn)

I have barracked for Hawthorn.

Once.

The 2008 Grand Final, and their perfect game. Cyril Rioli was as make-believe as the north wind, and Stuey Dew as immovable as a lump of bluestone. Their team unlocked a puzzle that day, and in doing so changed the way the game forever has been played. It was as beguiling as a good heist film. I cannot deny them their due. And oh my goodness, those poor people at Hawthorn, they’d endured such an unbearable premiership drought.

How many long years had it been, Marjorie?

I must have cheered for them also in 1991, in the anomalous Grand Final at Waverley, because I am certain that never before have I cheered for West Coast. And probably never will.

Maybe I backed Hawthorn also in their 1978 Grand Final win over North, seduced by the vision splendid of Peter Knights, the personality of Don Scott, the romance of a youthful Robert DiPierdomenico. I was young. Our family had moved recently to the city. Many of my class mates went for Hawthorn. It was peer pressure.

What I do know is that in last year’s Grand Final, my heart said Fremantle (over Hawthorn). And the year before, I was keen for Sydney to win the premiership (over Hawthorn). And in 1989 I really wanted Geelong to get up (over Hawthorn). And in the 1988 Grand Final I was definitely going for Melbourne (over Hawthorn), although they never stood a chance.

For both the 1986 and 1987 Grand Finals, when Hawthorn and Carlton played off against each other – squaring the ledger – I was staunchly ambivalent. Richmond weren’t much good those years. In 1987 we won the wooden spoon in the new 14-team competition. My interests lay elsewhere – trying to kiss girls and overcome teenage resentments.

In the 1985 Grand Final I was going for Essendon (over Hawthorn); likewise in 1984, when I went with my father – a Bombers man – with standing room tickets purchased on Grand Final morning from a customer at the newsagency (later owned by Saint Francis Bourke) where I did a morning paper round. In the 1983 Grand Final I was probably against Hawthorn also.

As those car stickers say: ALWAYS HAWTHORN. Always, always, always, always, bloody Hawthorn!

Can’t they give others a go? Must they be involved in every other Grand Final?

Since Richmond last reached that last Saturday in September – 32 years ago, when 17-year-old Helen D’Amico ran onto the MCG with nothing but a Carlton scarf, making her way to Bruce Doull, with Carlton up by a point in the third quarter, and it all going downhill for us ever since – Hawthorn have played in 11 Grand Finals, winning seven.

Their trophy cabinet overfloweth. Nobody at Richmond knows where to find the Silvo. Out at Waverley, the ‘family club’ have a team of volunteers, all brandishing Michael Tuck’s umpteen pairs of worn-out old undies, busy polishing away. Last September, Hawthorn overtook Richmond on the premiership tally (their 11 all coming since 1961). Two ships passed in the night. And the Good Ship Hawthorn, it looks still to be steaming upward.

Individually, I’ve quite liked some Hawthorn players.

I always loved Dipper’s acceptance speech for his 1986 Brownlow (“I just came for the free feed”). I quite admired Dermie’s strut and pomp, and chutzpah to lay a kiss on Billy Duckworth, or run through the Essendon huddle. He was a player. Johnny ‘The Rat’ Platten lingers in the mind when I think of Hawthorn, as does Gary Buckenara galloping down a wing, or Michael Tuck catching opponents a third his age, or Gary Ayres looking such a boyhood hero, such a model of a footballer.

But collectively, I think of Hawthorn and think only of torment.

Jason Dunstall always had a day out against us, although one day at Waverley Park in 1992 was more out than all others. He kicked 17.5. Our 18 players managed only 14.9 for the entire afternoon. Richmond fans everywhere looked for ways to look elsewhere. Oh the humiliation. Oh the embarrassment of it all, being put in the record books again for all the wrong reasons.

For so long we’ve been stranded on the bottom rungs of the ladder, looking up to Hawthorn, wondering what the view’s like up there. Oh, yes – look! – I can see another premiership window that needs a polish, Deidre.

Yes, yes, we’ve beaten you each time these past two seasons, but that only makes me nervous. I don’t wish to remind you, Hawthorn. We had a Tuck playing those games. He did a rain dance. We got lucky. Our hunger for the contest was whetted by the day.

I remember singing in the rain. I remember walking to a pub in Lennox Street, texting my father: “There is a God and his name is Hardwick”. My father’s reply: “Essendon created many gods”. I remember going home and watching the replay over and over again, drunk on the winning.

The body is tired but the mind is still willing, dear Tigers. You have not yet convinced; you have been unconvincing. I listened to Mr Hardwick (that old Dickensian character that he is) on a football show this week and he ended with something apt. Our boys need “to play big in big games”, he said.

This is the crux, and Sunday afternoon is the crucible.

Play BIG, dear Tigers! Rip into those Hawks; knock them about, have them chase you, fear you, look up to you. None of this chip-chip-chipping around – slay them through the heart and straight up the guts. End-to-end stuff on Sunday, Tigers. Bang, bang, bang. Be fearless; be without fear. Be not afraid, for that is a burden us supporters can carry for you. Play with abandon. Play only for each other, and then for us, and show all our little football world that there is life still in this old Tiger yet!

Show us what you can do and why we love you.

And if anyone has a spare ticket for the game, please contact me if you wish to share the love. I will be on my best behaviour. I will only streak the breadth of the ground if it’s sure to lift the curse of Helen D’Amico, and get us back playing in Grand Finals (where we’re sure to see bloody-well-always-Hawthorn).

This chapter in our Book of Feuds is now closed.