The Essendon white knight who paid more than $1m for ‘no-naming rights’ at the Hangar

In 2018, the Essendon Football Club found themselves searching for a new naming rights sponsor for their vast Tullamarine facility, which had cost tens of millions of dollars at a time of unprecedented and almost existential crisis for the Bombers.

The move to Tullamarine from Windy Hill, one of the most consequential decisions in club history, had been partly bankrolled by Essendon’s enviable team of heavy hitters, who had signed up to a semi-subterranean group called “The First 18” – named as if they were starters in a school footy team.

Founded by then president David Evans, each of the First 18 committed a mandatory minimum of $100,000 to the Tullamarine project before the Dons moved into their new digs during the tumult of 2013, when the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigation into their disastrous injection program was launched.

One of those First 18 – and by 2018, that group numbered many more than the eponymous 18 – came forward with a proposal.

Andrew Muir, the Essendon board member and benefactor who had sold his retail chain The Good Guys to JB Hi-Fi for $870 million, volunteered to purchase the naming rights sponsorship of the Bombers’new headquarters, at least for a period.

But Muir’s proposal had a twist.

He did not seek to give the facility a corporate prefix or attach his own name. Rather, it would be known plainly as “the Hangar” – a name, incidentally, that has stuck.

Muir, thus, holds the rare distinction of having paid what club sources from that time reckoned exceeded $1 million (over two years) for what you might term “the no naming rights” at Tullamarine; his covert sponsorship enduring only until mid-2020, when existing Essendon sponsor, NEC, took the baton – a partnership that remains.

Muir’s view, according to club insiders from that time (who spoke only off the record, as many current and ex-officials and past players did for this article), was that Essendon should not sell the naming rights for anything less than a high-level brand. If it couldn’t have the right brand affixed to Tullamarine, it shouldn’t have one.

Muir, unlike a number of white knights around football, had not sought public recognition and did not return calls from this masthead to discuss his unconventional sponsorship. He remains on Essendon’s board and is renowned both for his generosity to the club and left-field suggestions, such as the notion that the players would benefit from a specific vegetarian diet (an advocate for healthy eating, Muir’s Good Foundation teamed up with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver more than a decade ago).

Paul Little, the First 18 and the secret loans

The First 18, which would further expand to about 35 contributors, represents the top end and financially elite strata of Essendon’s famed supporter groups or coteries.

Four past presidents – Evans, his billionaire successor Paul Little, ex-federal finance minister and ALP luminary Lindsay Tanner and ex PwC global chairman Paul Brasher, also a long-serving board member – are in the expanded First 18, which means they’ve donated at least $100,000 over the journey.

In 2020, during the early period of COVID-19, Essendon received a line of credit – in effect, interest-free loans – from three benefactors for a significant amount. The private loans were known only to a small group within Essendon, headed by chief executive Xavier Campbell.

One lender for more than $1 million was Julius Colman, the ex-lawyer turned commercial property developer and international poker player who, like Muir, combined affection and assistance for the Bombers with philanthropy (Colman also donated more than $1 million of his poker winnings to his charity, the Colman Foundation).

Another to provide a line of credit to the club was Mario Biasin, the late owner of housing company Metricon and a one time major shareholder in the Melbourne Victory A-League club. Both men were foundation members of the First 18.

The Bombers, who were not an “assisted” club given extra funding by the AFL during COVID, retained full financial independence at a time when they were recovering from a debt that ballooned to around $12 million in 2016 (when legal and other costs peaked following the mass suspensions of current and ex-players by the Court of Arbitration for Sport). They were still spending millions at Tullamarine.

Separately, Little also has been a strong financial backer of the Bombers, whose donors are revealed, in part, at the Hangar, where there’s a Paul Little wing in the second building. The Biasin family are the sponsors of the club museum.

The Hangar has a function room for Essendon’s oldest, equally feted and feared coterie, the Essendonians. The trophy cabinet bears the names of all members of the Collins Street Dons (formerly the Dick Reynolds Club). Housed behind glass, Essendon’s premiership cups (16 in VFL/AFL) have their own family sponsors, too.

A second billionaire, Computershare founder Chris Morris was in the original First 18, and donated considerably more than the $100,000 minimum, according to a source from that period. Morris, who owns the Portsea Hotel and has extensive property investments in Queensland, has had less involvement in Essendon lately.

No other AFL club’s coterie and supporter groups have been the subject of so much discussion, politicking or been so embedded into club DNA as Essendon’s.

If one were to compare Essendon’s coterie and support networks to their rapacious rival Carlton, one could say that their donors/benefactors aren’t as oligarchical or visible as those of navy-blue hue (for example, the Pratt and Mathieson families), but that the Dons arguably bat deeper when the hat is passed around.

In 2025, the Bombers are seeking to reinvent themselves as a club that sheds the (Kevin) Sheedy skin while remaining respectful and proud of their storied past. The result is a still highly political club, in which statements about individuals are carefully chosen and might as well have subtitles – as when influential long-time recruiting boss and Sheedy ally Adrian Dodoro departed, following legal action in Fair Work Australia and a confidential settlement with the club he had served for three decades.

President David Barham, whose tenure to date has been defined by the appointments of Brad Scott and CEO Craig Vozzo, described Essendon’s mission thus: “We have to look to the future but celebrate and respect our past.”

Little, who was contacted for this article more than a fortnight ago, politely declined to comment on his involvement at Essendon or on board issues. He has since gone on record (with Seven’s Agenda Setters) refusing to rule out involvement in a board challenge or restructure.

Just after the board takeover of 2022, TV executive Barham inherited the presidency from Brasher – one of four directors to resign over the issue of Ben Rutten’s position and an external review. Brasher, Simon Madden, Sean Wellman and Peter Allen were opposed, supporting Rutten. Little declined to comment to this masthead on whether he would back a board challenge at the time, but he did not move against Barham, who had some fallout from the ill-fated appointment of ex-NAB boss Andrew Thorburn as CEO.

In 2022, Little – who led Essendon for much of the draining ASADA saga, when the club had overlapping crises – made plain to the Barham board that he supported the return of James Hird as senior coach. Hird had been a candidate, alongside Adem Yze, 2025 board member and 2000 premiership player Dean Solomon and the successful candidate, Brad Scott.

This masthead can confirm, however, that the billionaire – who came to public prominence via shareholding in logistic giant Toll Holdings and subsequently in property – is not a major financial contributor to Essendon in 2025, though he remains a corporate member, First 18 founding member and provides career/financial mentoring to some current players.

The perennially speculated prospect of Hird returning as coach – which was a long shot even when formally entertained in 2022 – made him Essendon’s version of the exiled prince, a Bonnie Prince Charlie (or Josh Frydenberg).

Hird himself has quelled that discussion by putting a line through coaching Essendon in future on Nine’s Footy Classified this week.

The coterie conundrum and Sheedy’s shadow

Founded in the 1960s, the Essendonians were closely intertwined with the club hierarchy in the ’80s, ’90s and into the 2000s, during the Sheedy epoch; they had their own room at Windy Hill (and have one at Tullamarine now).

A former board member from the ‘90s and 2000s reckoned the coterie would be told the team on Tuesday, whereas the board wouldn’t know until Wednesday.

The Essendonians number nearly 200, with each member paying at least what one long-time family member estimated at $10,000 a year. They contribute in the range of $300,000 and $400,000 to the club coffers. As a former senior official observed, the Essendonian financial impact was proportionately important in the ’90s and 2000s, and less crucial, though still valued, today.

In Sheedy’s day, the Essendonians were headed for a long time by the popular club figure, the late Ron Kirwan, who had close relationships with players, while another important Sheedy ally, wealthy businessman and board member Bruce Heymanson, too, was a benefactor and networker nonpareil (“Heymo” died in early 2013).

When the First 18 were established, Heymanson was often the man who made the pitch to the well-heeled.

The other notable coteries or support groups are the elite Coach’s Club, who pay around $30,000 for access to the senior coach, including regular briefings. There’s the Collins Street Dons (self-explanatory), the Essendon Executive Club, legal fraternity group The Law Dons, property and construction coterie Band of Bombers, the Sydney Bombers and the Essendon Women’s Network.

Linda Dessau, the former governor of Victoria, ex-family court judge and AFL commissioner, was a founder of the Essendon Women’s Network. Her husband, ex-County Court judge and barrister Tony Howard, set up the Law Dons and was appointed to Essendon’s board in 2024, providing the legal expertise that AFL clubs increasingly crave. At one point in her governorship, Dessau was touted as an AFL chair to succeed Richard Goyder.

At various times since the 2010s, Essendon’s hierarchy has discussed “consolidating” – that is, reducing or merging the coteries – given their large number, and bringing the groups under direct club control. Collingwood more or less did this under Eddie McGuire. Xavier Campbell was an advocate for consolidation, club sources said. “It was a nettle that was never grasped,” said one ex-board member of that time.

The view that coteries, headed by the Essendonians, are either meddlesome or a spanner in club operations is disputed by the top brass.

“The Essendonians are fantastic,” said Barham. “They are incredibly supportive, they are well run and Essendon is lucky to have them.

“There’s a lot of bullshit [said] about the Essendonians.” Barham added the same description of the Collins Street Dons – “fantastic.”

Vozzo also endorsed the value of the Essendonians.

One argument from football department officials and board members of the recent past was that the influence of coteries on football decisions was exaggerated, but that commitments to coteries and supporter groups – such as briefings and functions – took up valuable time and could be a distraction from the task at hand.

This view – one of misplaced priorities – was also posited by ex-assistant coach (2016-17), the former West Coast champion and Gold Coast senior coach Guy McKenna, who once told the West Australian (2022): “The Bombers have a large fan base and enormous coterie group(s) which I spent more time in two years servicing than I did in 13 seasons at West Coast.”

Sheedy’s capacity to charm the coteries – who adore the four-time premiership coach – was in part the reason for Essendon hiring him as paid ambassador, on a six figure annual fee, in 2020 – a deal that remains, despite Sheedy’s exit from the club board.

Brasher appointed Sheedy to the board in 2020, when the Bombers were dealing with the exodus of Joe Daniher, Adam Saad and Conor McKenna. The Bombers were seeking – as officials from that time fully acknowledge – to shore up support from a sullen membership.

Sheedy left the board at the end of 2024, having broken ranks with the board on the issue of Brad Scott’s appointment in 2022 – he put on record that he wanted Hird rather than Scott, against the wishes of the coaching subcommittee.

Sheedy’s deal with Essendon expires later this year. “I haven’t signed any contract with anyone yet,” said Sheedy, who said he had also promoted GWS and Richmond.

“I do anything the club asks me to do because I’m a Legend of the club and I should.”

Past players: who has clout?

The Sheedy era is the only genuine success that Essendon people without pension cards have known, as the finals-winning drought stretches to 21 years. The club’s past 10 premierships were coached by Essendon’s three totemic figures – Sheedy, John Coleman and Dick Reynolds.

One consequence, which the Essendon leaders know too well, is that the Sheedy era represents an idealised Camelot for fans that is difficult to move past, until they have new heroes.

A few former club people saw parallels between Essendon post-Sheedy and Manchester United’s failure to remain as powerful after Sir Alex Ferguson’s exit.

“That’s the same thing that happened to Tom Hafey at Richmond for 37 years and probably Norm Smith at Melbourne,” said Sheedy, who said he couldn’t explain – having been at GWS – exactly what happened in his aftermath.

Thus, an Essendon passport – read, a part in the all-conquering 2000 team, 1993’s improbable “Baby Bombers” flag or 1984-85’s super team – confers statue stature on ex-players, such as Matthew Lloyd, Dustin Fletcher, Scott Lucas, Hird, Mark Thompson and Mark Harvey.

Two past senior officials, who came from outside the Essendon family fold, felt that EPs – Essendon people – were afforded more privilege than outsiders, a dynamic replicated across most clubs.

Of the ex-players, the former champion and media figure Tim Watson is viewed internally as the most influential, via the combination of his media position – decades at SEN and Seven- and ranking as one of Essendon’s greatest players, and father of star midfielder and skipper Jobe Watson.

The elder Watson regularly conversed with CEO Campbell, had longstanding relationships with teammates Thompson, Harvey, Hird and Simon Madden, who was one of the four directors to resign on principle over the Rutten/external review issue.

Watson is careful in his pronouncements but whatever he says about the Bombers is newsworthy, and he has long had the ear of the club hierarchy. He and Jobe, for instance, would not endorse the return of Hird to the coaching position in 2022 when Rutten was sacked.

The Dons, the elder Watson said then, “don’t need a saviour.”

Andrew Welsh, the club’s vice president, is a former player from the late Sheedy era, a teammate of Lloyd, Hird et al, and has made hundreds of millions in property. Welsh is all but assured of succeeding Barham – if he wishes – and has increased his clout via the election to the board of 2000 premiership player Solomon.

Mark Harvey, the triple premiership great who coached Fremantle and was caretaker at Brisbane when Michael Voss was sacked, has served what the club says is a valued commercial role that includes communicating with supporter groups and ex-players, keeping them in the loop but also providing the football department with a buffer from those obligations.

Harvey is friends with both Sheedy and Dodoro, but has managed to straddle the tensions that arose between that faction and the Barham-Vozzo-Scott club leadership.

The 20-year struggle and the power of the fan

Despite the failure to contend for two decades, Essendon managed to build Tullamarine, at a cost that Vozzo suggested was $40 million – others put it closer to $50 million.

Regardless of the outlay, the Bombers – thanks to First 18ers, state and federal governments and ordinary members – have managed to build their Taj Mahal, on airport land, at a cost that will be half what Richmond and Hawthorn are spending on Punt Road and Dingley respectively.

They timed their construction well, and so have no debt today.

Vozzo said that Essendon’s average ladder position since 2004 is 11th, and views the team’s struggles during this Millenium as the source of Essendon’s greatest challenge.

“And so our fans, either… they’re happy, or they’re angry and hostile. There’s not much in between, and I can fairly understand why they feel like [that] – fair enough, because there’s been a lack of confidence or trust in… what we’re doing. So that’s the challenge, and that then leaks into a few things, obviously, [like] your commercial operation.

“So, we’re not as strong as I think we can be as a football club. I think we’ve got exciting opportunity ahead. But that gets back to, let’s get our football right.”

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