The Hawthorn Football Club is in a dire state, languishing bottom of the ladder in their worst start to the season since 1950 after two thrashings at the hands of Essendon and Sydney. and it isn’t looking up for the brown and gold faithful.
The club is plagued with infighting and indecision, with a forum last Thursday labelled “Unite and Inspire” doing anything but.
Channel 7 reported the “secret meeting” was kept “hush-hush” with the club reaching crisis point.
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Veteran football journalist Caroline Wilson reported on Footy Classified that the “Unite and Inspire meeting held at the club last Thursday emerged at one point into a fiery war of words between new club president, Andrew Gowers, and Hawks saviour Don Scott.”
Scott has a longstanding reputation as a Hawthorn icon, playing in the 1971 premiership before leading the Hawks to two more in 1976 and 1978.
Scott was also the founder of the Operation Payback campaign in 1996, which successfully led the resistance against the proposed Melbourne Hawks merger between Hawthorn and Melbourne, famously standing in front of a crowd of 2500 at the Camberwell Civic Centre and tearing off the Hawk emblem from a mock-up merger jumper in an iconic show of defiance.
“Scott ended up walking out of the (Unite and Inspire) meeting, but not before he questioned the integrity of President Andrew Gowers, questioned his promise of a $10 million injection into the club from 10 individual benefactors, questioned the identity and who was behind the ‘Hawks for Change’, and whether it was club money or individual money that paid for the PR of the (presidential) election campaign,” said Wilson.
Scott and Gowers were at loggerheads last year as the club looked for a replacement for outgoing president, former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett.
Vice-president and Kennett ally Peter Nankivell, who also chaired the club’s six-person nominations committee to identify potential successors, was named as Kennett’s successor in June 2022 last year, infuriating a sect of powerful club figures that opposed Kennett’s influence and felt Nankivell would act as Kennett’s proxy in the role.
The club spiralled into bureaucratic civil war, with the Nankivell ticket backed by the likes of Peter Hudson, Jarryd Roughead, Jordan Lewis and Campbell Brown via a public relations company.
Those opposing Nankivell fell behind Andrew Gowers under the moniker “Hawks for Change”, and included former premiership players Gary Ayres, Peter Schwab and former Victorian deputy premier James Merlino.
A letter by the faction to the club’s supporters described the Kennett administration as a “club within a club”, and called out the process that appointed Nankivell as the proposed nominee for president as “flawed, failed and wrong.”
Gowers won the race for president in a contested AGM in December 2022, calling for unity upon his election.
Wilson also noted the displeasure with members at the forum with the club’s public direction.
“Bec Goddard, AFLW coach, expressed some initial reservations, which she’s a bit more comfortable with now, about the moniker ‘the family club’, which she saw as far too old fashioned initially,” she said.
“Sam Mitchell was questioned over the club’s direction, which has upset the AFL, upset some supporters, and upset some other clubs who think the competition is being skewed at the moment.
“The Hawthorn board have just broken up again tonight (Monday), they had another board meeting, where they put the finishing touches on a new five year plan for the footy club.
“Well, they would want it to be a bit better than the last five year plan, which came out in 2017 under Jeff Kennett and still-CEO Justin Reeves.”
Wilson then proceeded to break down the various objectives set out in Hawthorn’s most recent five-year plan and assessed whether they had achieved them, in a scathing and incisive assessment of the state of the club.
“Two AFL premierships, no,” she said.
“100,000 members, currently it’s around 65,000.
“You couldn’t say there’s been good governance over the last four or five years.
“Welfare of our people? Well, we’re looking at the racism inquiry at the moment.
“Yes, the club secured an AFLW license, but so did everyone.
“Extend the Tasmanian Government partnership, well that’s a question mark because it’s only a year and that could end very soon.
“Generate funding for our world class training and administration facility – even if the state Government funding comes through, they’re still $20 million short and it’s going to be done in stages.
“You couldn’t say the club is a community leader in mental health, indigenous and women’s affairs.
“Yes, financial independence has been maintained, and I think there’s one or two new sports marketing initiatives that haven’t done much at all.”
“It’s a disaster,” she concluded.
Wilson noted that the club extended contracts for key figures that served during the club’s post-threepeat hangover.
AFL.com.au journalists Nat Edwards and Damian Barrett discussed the meeting on the AFL Daily podcast, describing Don Scott as an “agitator”.
Barrett said there were “about 50 people at the club at Waverley, at the meeting held on Thursday night.
“There were questions asked of the allegations that some of the club was being run by outside consultants, that’s in relation to the outside group that was clearly instrumental in getting Andrew Gowers in as chairman and what role they still have in the operations,” he said.
“It is a mess.
“There is a form of tanking with what they’ve done.”
“Now we’ve got the issues with the Dingley relocation, the constant unknowns with the Hawthorn racism situation.”
