The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Dingley Village that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawthorn, making it the youngest Victorian-based team in the AFL.
The Hawks are the only club to have won the VFL/AFL competition in every decade between 1960 and 2020, totalling 13 premierships. The team play in their traditional vertically striped brown-and-gold guernseys for Home fixtures, but may use different designs for special rounds such as Sir Doug Nicholls Round. For Away fixtures, the team alternates between guernseys that are either predominantly gold, white or brown.
The club's Latin motto is Spectemur agendo ("Let us be judged by our acts)". The Hawks are known for their strong competitive rivalry with certain AFL teams, most notably the Geelong and Essendon football clubs.
Upon inception and until 1973, the Hawks played home matches at Glenferrie Oval in Hawthorn; they subsequently shifted home matches to Princes Park in 1974, and to Waverley Park in 1991. Later, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) became their home ground when Waverley was redeveloped. The club moved its training and administration facilities from Glenferrie to Waverley Park in 2006, which is located in an area of the club's major supporter base in Melbourne's outer-eastern region. In 2025, Hawthorn once again moved its headquarters and training facilities, settling in the purpose-built Kennedy Community Centre in Dingley Village. Since 2007, Hawthorn have played four games a year at their secondary home ground of York Park in Launceston, Tasmania, an as part of an agreement struck with the Tasmanian government which will end in 2027. Most of the remaining home games are played at the MCG and one usually played at Marvel Stadium.
Hawthorn fields a women's team in the AFLW competition. The AFLW team played their first game on 27 August 2022 at Marvel Stadium.
History Origins The official club history books and many supporters strongly believe that the club's origins date back to its founding in 1873 at a meeting at the Hawthorne Hotel. Although a Hawthorn Football Club did indeed form at this time—and the region has since continuously been represented by a football team—it was not the Hawthorn which competes at AFL level today. It is likely that today's club is actually the third club to carry the name "Hawthorn Football Club". On 12 May 1883, The Age reported that "the Hawthorn club has disbanded and all engagements for the ensuing season are therefore cancelled".
In 1889, the Riversdale Football Club (formed in 1880) is reported to have changed its name to the Hawthorn Football Club. This club also ceased in 1890. No Hawthorn club existed from 1890 to 1892. A new representative club, also called the "Hawthorn Football Club", was formed in 1893. It competed in the Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA) until 1898. Without a ground to play on, however, the club was disbanded in 1899.
Modern club founded In April 1902, Alf Kosky formed a club from the various district clubs under the banner of Hawthorn Football Club to compete in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association (MJFA). Hawthorn's first win was in round 4, 1902, with an 18-point victory over Celtic. The club finished sixth on the ladder at the end of the 1902 season with six wins from its 16 games. On 30 March 1905, prior to the start of that year's MJFA season, Hawthorn merged with the Boroondara Football Club and adopted Boroondara's colours of a black guernsey with a red sash, but retained the "Hawthorn" name.
Hawthorn changed its official name to the Hawthorn City Football Club in 1906 as a result of Glenferrie Oval opening, although the club continued to be known simply as Hawthorn. In 1912, the club merged with the Hawthorn Rovers, a successful junior club, changing to a gold guernsey with a blue "V" of the Rovers, and again renaming officially to "Hawthorn City". The council then applied to the Victorian Football Association (VFA) for inclusion, which was granted in 1914 when Hawthorn replaced the disbanded Melbourne City Football Club.
VFA years: 1914–1924 The first task for the club was to decide on club colours; their jumper of blue and gold was already taken by Williamstown, so a change was required. At a Special General Meeting held on 17 February 1914, a Mr J. Brain proposed brown and gold as the new colours, and the motion was carried. The Mayblooms won three games and had one draw in their first season in the VFA. The consequences of players enlisting in World War I caused the club to finish last in 1915. The VFA then went into recess in 1916 and 1917, and Hawthorn did not compete when resumption occurred in 1918. Upon Hawthorn's resumption in 1919, it was more competitive, winning eight games and finishing sixth out of ten teams. Hawthorn dropped to eighth in 1920, but in 1921 they won seven games and finished sixth.
Bill Walton was appointed captain-coach of Hawthorn in 1922. He was, however, refused a clearance by Port Melbourne; and, as a result, spent the season playing for Port Melbourne while coaching Hawthorn during the week. Twice that season, he had the unusual situation of playing a VFA game against the club that he coached. In one of those matches, a Port Melbourne teammate had to be restrained from striking Walton over Walton's vocal support for the player's opponent. In 1922, the club missed the finals by percentage and Hawthorn set a new record score in the VFA, scoring 30.31.211 to Prahran 6.9.45. In 1923, Walton was granted his clearance, and the club made the finals by finishing in fourth place, losing to Port Melbourne in the first semi-final. 1924, the club finished fifth, missing the finals by four points.
Entry to the VFL
Since 1919, the VFL had nine clubs which caused one team to be idle every Saturday. The VFL was keen to do away with this bye via the admission of a tenth club. In 1924, a group calling itself the Hawthorn Citizens' League Campaign Committee began gathering support for the football club's admittance to the VFL. Other representations came from Brighton, Brunswick, Footscray, North Melbourne, Prahran, Camberwell, and Caulfield.
On 9 January 1925, a committee meeting of the VFL, chaired by Reg Hunt of Carlton, examined the question of expanding the competition from nine clubs to twelve;Hunt originally recommended Hawthorn, Footscray and Prahran but eventually North Melbourne was substituted for Prahran because of ground control matters. and then, at a further (full) meeting on 16 January 1925, the VFL decided to admit the three Victorian Football Association (VFA) clubs: Hawthorn, Footscray and North Melbourne.League Football: Applications for Admissions: Decision Again Deferred, The Geelong Advertiser, (Monday, 12 January 1925), p. 5; Old Boy, "Football League: Admitting More Teams: Old Scheme Revised: Decision Left to Clubs", The Argus, (Tuesday, 13 January 1925), p. 13; Football: Three New Clubs Admitted, The Age, (Saturday, 17 January 1925), p. 14; League: Three Clubs Admitted, The Argus, (Saturday, 17 January 1925), p. 31.
Bumbling along the bottom: 1925–1949 The Mayblooms, as they were then known, became the perennial whipping boys of the competition. Hawthorn had an almost casual attitude towards playing football and—lying remote from major industrial areas and consequently devoid of the business or political patrons available to , and Booth, Ross; 'History of Player Recruitment, Transfer and Payment Rules in the Victorian and Australian Football League'; ASSH Bulletin No. 26 (June 1997); pp. 13-33—were not able to even pay their players the match payment then allowed by the Coulter Law. Despite the presence of a number of players of true class—such as Bert Hyde, Bert Mills, Stan Spinks, Alec Albiston, and Col Austen—Hawthorn never won more than seven games in a season in its first seventeen years in the League.
Roy Cazaly was the non-playing coach of Hawthorn in 1942; he was reported to have given the club its nickname the "Hawks" on the suggestion of one of his daughters. Cazaly thought that it was tougher than their original nickname the "Mayblooms", and 1943 turned out to be the club's best season since joining the VFL, in which the club missed the finals only by percentage. However, Hawthorn immediately returned to the bottom of the ladder, consistently competing with St Kilda for the wooden spoon. Between 1944 and 1953, the club finished last or second-last in every year but one. Half-back flanker Col Austen tied with South Melbourne's Ron Clegg for the 1949 Brownlow Medal but was not awarded it based on the "countback" system in place at that time. The League later changed the system for tied results, and, in 1989, he was awarded the medal retrospectively, a year before his death.
1950s 1950 started with the club in turmoil. The club appointed Bob McCaskill as coach, and he wanted Kevin Curran to be captain. Outgoing captain-coach Alec Albiston was angry as he was told by a member of the board that he would remain as captain. Brownlow Medallist Col Austen sided with Albiston and a split occurred. The board sided with the new coach and gave Albiston and Austen open clearances. Without the club's best two players, the team did not win a match in 1950. New captain Kevin Curran was suspended for striking Austen on the first occasion Hawthorn and Austen's new club Richmond played.
The club decided to change its playing jumper to the brown and gold vertical stripes. Two positives were the arrival of John Kennedy and Roy Simmonds. Over the next ten years, Kennedy would play 169 games for Hawthorn, serving as captain from 1955 until his retirement in 1959, and winning the club's Best and Fairest award four times (in 1950, 51, 52 and 54). Simmonds would play 192 games and win the club's Best and Fairest award in 1955.
In 1952, Jack Hale took over as coach, Hale had been Bob McCaskill's assistant, but McCaskill's health was failing and he died in June 1952. Aided by dividends from the VFL's finals revenue making the club more competitive financially—despite no Hawthorn team in any grade playing VFL finals to that pointRodgers, Stephen (compiler); The Complete Book of VFL Records, p. 284 —this proved the decisive step in the movement of Hawthorn away from the bottom of the ladder. He eliminated the casual attitude that prevailed at the club during its first thirty years in the VFL and made the club less accepting of defeat than before. Although Hawthorn finished last in 1953, from the following year improvement was steady.
Hawthorn had their first recruitment coup in 1954 by signing Clayton "Candles" Thompson from South Australia. Thompson was the glamour player from the 1953 National Football Championships, kicking ten goals against Western Australia. Fresh from school, teenagers John Peck, Allan Woodley, Noel Voigt and Brian Kann started at Hawthorn and the club won eight games. Gifted schoolboy from Sandhurst, Graham Arthur, arrived in 1955 and became the second player to win the club's Best and Fairest in his first year, the other being John Kennedy. Brendan Edwards followed Arthur to Hawthorn in 1956 and, although the seniors showed a slight decline to seven wins and a draw, the reserve grade side gave Hawthorn a first finals appearance in any grade.
First finals appearance In 1957 the senior team broke through for their first finals appearance, defeating Carlton in the first semi-final long remembered for the freak hailstorm after half time. It was a surreal look of the MCG covered in golfball-size hailstones. They were outclassed by Melbourne in the preliminary final.
Kennedy era: 1960–1982
Winning premierships 1961 VFL Grand Final G B Total Hawthorn 13 16 94 7 9 51 Venue: Melbourne Cricket Ground Crowd: 107,935