By R G Fraser
This is one of my very favourite photos: me with my children (including soon-to-be son-in-law - a Hawks man, naturally). Round 2, 2016. Hawks, premiers the previous year, have just seen off our Grand Final opponent by 46 points. Crushed them all over again. No reason why we can’t make it Cup number 14…and that Magpies record for successive premierships is gettable. We should be there already, but for some lousy kicking in 2012. In gatherings of Hawks supporters all the talk is of ‘Fourthorn’.
Reigning Premiers. The Hawks are the Iron Chef of the AFL – we reign supreme.
Fast forward. Qualifying Final against the ‘Auld Adversary’. Cats have the better of us but somehow, miraculously, we are in a position to win at the death. Ball in the hands of Isaac “One for the Ages” Smith. 35 out. Smile for the cameras Isaac. He misses.
Doggies the following week – cut throat. Second quarter, focus on the commentators’ darling L Breuuuuuuuust. 20 out, a shot to go 27 points up. “He never misses”….but he did. They roll over the top of us. We are out of the finals. No more Fourthorn, no more fourteenth premiership. Nothing.
We are back in the footy pack with the rest of them. The best thing about winning is not losing.
Luke Hodge tells a story of his son Cooper – born in a premiership year, 2008, just like my Alexis – asking his Dad when they would be going to the 2016 Grand Final parade. Having experienced four premierships in his eight years and watched #15 in the last four parades it was a fair question. Luke had to let him down gently. Like most Hawks supporters the expectation was we would just be there. That is what we do. We win, we prevail, we find a way. We reign supreme.
But no parade for the Hawks in 2016…or the next year, or the next. Early on we would joke amongst ourselves with mock indignation: “Don’t they know it has been 104 weeks since our last premiership?” “How cute...Tigers won 1 in a row”.
Keeping up appearances, trying to keep all others in their place. But the years pass and we don’t really look like it. Dead cat bounce in 2018, out in straight sets. No joy for the last five years. Which, for a Hawks supporter usually means we are due. Excluding the decade after our first, and the long drought between 1991 and 2008, the wait between the chocolates is no more than five years – an incredible statistic.
I must admit that some Hawthorn supporters got a bit too carried away with success, letting confidence and love of the Club morph into hubris. Just ask the Couldabeen Champions, who have taken great delight in “Dancing on our Grave”. I remember well the wise words of David Wilson, aka e.regnans, who in the Footy Almanac warned us not to get too carried away following the 2015 win.
History shows that he was right. As one of the subjects of his tale, Magpie, wistfully states of the Happy Hawk of the story:
She’ll get it. One day she’ll get it. I just hope it’s not too late.
How the once Mighty Fightings have fallen.
This year, the COVID-19 year, has been terrible. For whatever reason – hubs, lack of training together, aging list, coaches, whatever – the Hawks were poor…really poor. Thank goodness for the Suns and their effort in the annual charity retirement game to give us something about which to smile at season’s end. The talk amongst supporters of “this season doesn’t matter/put an asterisks next to the winner” lacks the robust conviction of recent years. Voices are muted, eyes downcast. We speak with faint hope, not certainty. We know for a fact next year will not be ours, and probably not the year after that. We look to the calendar and see we have nine more years to deliver on the proud boast of at least one premiership every decade since the 60’s.
In Jeff We Trust…perhaps now even more than Clarko.
So this year the Grand Final parade will not include us. Come Saturday night we will watch the box, wishing we were there. Wishing we felt the relief of 2013, the pure joy of 2014, the sense of “this is the natural order of things” of 2015. Much as we do not want to see Geelong salute, we hope they do…the view from thirteen premierships is nice and we don’t want to share the lofty peak with those Tigers. And perish the thought they might push on to three in a row. To create their own dynasty.
To Reign in the Parade.
Grant Fraser is an avid Hawthorn supporter who cannot believe his good luck at having experienced two sets of “glory years” in the one lifetime.
This is one of my very favourite photos: me with my children (including soon-to-be son-in-law - a Hawks man, naturally). Round 2, 2016. Hawks, premiers the previous year, have just seen off our Grand Final opponent by 46 points. Crushed them all over again. No reason why we can’t make it Cup number 14…and that Magpies record for successive premierships is gettable. We should be there already, but for some lousy kicking in 2012. In gatherings of Hawks supporters all the talk is of ‘Fourthorn’.
Reigning Premiers. The Hawks are the Iron Chef of the AFL – we reign supreme.
Fast forward. Qualifying Final against the ‘Auld Adversary’. Cats have the better of us but somehow, miraculously, we are in a position to win at the death. Ball in the hands of Isaac “One for the Ages” Smith. 35 out. Smile for the cameras Isaac. He misses.
Doggies the following week – cut throat. Second quarter, focus on the commentators’ darling L Breuuuuuuuust. 20 out, a shot to go 27 points up. “He never misses”….but he did. They roll over the top of us. We are out of the finals. No more Fourthorn, no more fourteenth premiership. Nothing.
We are back in the footy pack with the rest of them. The best thing about winning is not losing.
Luke Hodge tells a story of his son Cooper – born in a premiership year, 2008, just like my Alexis – asking his Dad when they would be going to the 2016 Grand Final parade. Having experienced four premierships in his eight years and watched #15 in the last four parades it was a fair question. Luke had to let him down gently. Like most Hawks supporters the expectation was we would just be there. That is what we do. We win, we prevail, we find a way. We reign supreme.
But no parade for the Hawks in 2016…or the next year, or the next. Early on we would joke amongst ourselves with mock indignation: “Don’t they know it has been 104 weeks since our last premiership?” “How cute...Tigers won 1 in a row”.
Keeping up appearances, trying to keep all others in their place. But the years pass and we don’t really look like it. Dead cat bounce in 2018, out in straight sets. No joy for the last five years. Which, for a Hawks supporter usually means we are due. Excluding the decade after our first, and the long drought between 1991 and 2008, the wait between the chocolates is no more than five years – an incredible statistic.
I must admit that some Hawthorn supporters got a bit too carried away with success, letting confidence and love of the Club morph into hubris. Just ask the Couldabeen Champions, who have taken great delight in “Dancing on our Grave”. I remember well the wise words of David Wilson, aka e.regnans, who in the Footy Almanac warned us not to get too carried away following the 2015 win.
History shows that he was right. As one of the subjects of his tale, Magpie, wistfully states of the Happy Hawk of the story:
She’ll get it. One day she’ll get it. I just hope it’s not too late.
How the once Mighty Fightings have fallen.
This year, the COVID-19 year, has been terrible. For whatever reason – hubs, lack of training together, aging list, coaches, whatever – the Hawks were poor…really poor. Thank goodness for the Suns and their effort in the annual charity retirement game to give us something about which to smile at season’s end. The talk amongst supporters of “this season doesn’t matter/put an asterisks next to the winner” lacks the robust conviction of recent years. Voices are muted, eyes downcast. We speak with faint hope, not certainty. We know for a fact next year will not be ours, and probably not the year after that. We look to the calendar and see we have nine more years to deliver on the proud boast of at least one premiership every decade since the 60’s.
In Jeff We Trust…perhaps now even more than Clarko.
So this year the Grand Final parade will not include us. Come Saturday night we will watch the box, wishing we were there. Wishing we felt the relief of 2013, the pure joy of 2014, the sense of “this is the natural order of things” of 2015. Much as we do not want to see Geelong salute, we hope they do…the view from thirteen premierships is nice and we don’t want to share the lofty peak with those Tigers. And perish the thought they might push on to three in a row. To create their own dynasty.
To Reign in the Parade.
Grant Fraser is an avid Hawthorn supporter who cannot believe his good luck at having experienced two sets of “glory years” in the one lifetime.