Melbourne Hawks


The Melbourne Hawks was a planned Australian Football League team that would have consisted of the merger between the Melbourne Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club clubs at the end of the 1996 season.
Out of all the proposed merger combinations in the 1990s, it appeared to be the most ideal— Hawthorn had a football team which had success but were in a dire financial situation, while Melbourne had sound financial base but had not won a premiership for over 30 years.
Following a vote of members from both clubs on 16 September 1996, which saw Melbourne members narrowly vote in favour while Hawthorn members overwhelmingly voted against, the proposed merger did not proceed. As of 2025, both clubs have continued to compete in their own right in the AFL.

Background

Since the mid-1980s, the formerly all-Victorian-based Victorian Football League competition had undertaken a large expansion program which saw the league expand from being a state-based competition to a national competition. The decision to undertake this expansion was in response to elite national leagues being run by other sporting codes, which threatened to undermine interest in football at both a junior and elite level. The VFL expansion included new teams from Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane, in addition to the relocation of South Melbourne to Sydney, and saw the league change its name from the VFL to the Australian Football League.
The expansion led to Victoria holding a disproportionately large number of teams relative to the other states. By the mid-1990s, there were eleven teams based in Victoria – ten of those in the inner suburbs of Melbourne – and concerns were raised about the long term viability of some of the weaker Melbourne-based clubs. Members of the AFL Commission began to worry that, relative to the new interstate clubs and more powerful Victorian-based teams, the weaker Melbourne-based clubs would not have a sufficiently large supporter base to survive in the new national competition. Statistics published in newspapers like the Herald Sun showed that several Melbourne-based clubs only had a fraction of the membership base of either their interstate or cross-town rivals. It was suggested by some at the time that the Melbourne market could realistically support no more than six to eight teams.
The AFL, under CEO Ross Oakley, proposed that the preferred outcome for these smaller Melbourne-based clubs would be to merge with other smaller teams. According to the AFL at the time, mergers would create super-clubs which would retain at least some of the traditions and history of its former teams; clearly preferable to having both teams eventually financially collapse. Merging with other Melbourne-based clubs, rather than relocating interstate, would allow local supporters to continue attending their teams' matches. Based on this logic, the AFL undertook an active program of pursuing mergers between Melbourne-based clubs. The AFL began this policy by offering A$6 million to any newly merged football team.
Within Melbourne, discussions about potential mergers were often greeted with deep suspicion and open hostility. While the growth of a national competition from the former VFL has arguably been highly beneficial to the code of Australian rules football overall, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, many Melburnians were opposed to reform attempts. The merger debate led to widespread accusations that the league's administrators had grown out-of-touch with the sport's grass-roots supporter base. The league openly discussing the elimination of some Melbourne-based clubs through mergers led to widespread anger, and disillusionment, towards the league.

Merger proposals

Upon pressure and incentives from the league, and saturation of the dire warnings about the consequences of too many teams based in Melbourne, a number of Melbourne-based clubs began investigating and pursuing potential mergers. Some proposals raised in the local media included various combinations of Melbourne, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Footscray, Fitzroy, North Melbourne and Richmond, and only a late fightback campaign had averted a merger between Fitzroy and Footscray in 1989. Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong were generally exempt from these proposals due to their financial success.

Case for a merger

Of the potential mergers that were speculated about in the media, the one which perhaps seemed to make the most sense was the potential merger between Melbourne and Hawthorn. On the surface, the merger appeared to make sense for a number of reasons:
  • Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Hawthorn had fielded exceptional teams which had won the club a succession of grand final appearances and premierships. Hawthorn, under then-coach Ken Judge, had also undertaken a youth recruitment campaign which had netted the club a number of promising players, including future Brownlow Medalist Shane Crawford.
  • * In contrast, Melbourne had not won a premiership in more than three decades and suffered from a relatively weak on-field performance.
  • Melbourne was in a relatively strong financial position.
  • * In contrast, Hawthorn was suffering from mounting debts and financial losses. It had struggled to obtain and maintain corporate sponsorship, at one point in 1992 not having a corporate sponsor in spite of having won the previous Grand Final.
  • Hawthorn had a centralised training facility, administration centre, and social club at its Glenferrie Oval complex. The team's training facilities had recently been upgraded and were amongst the best in the league.
  • * In contrast, Melbourne did not have a central base: it trained at the Junction Oval in St Kilda, had its administration facilities in Jolimont, and had a social club in Sandringham.
  • Both clubs were perceived to have had a traditionally middle-class supporter base; Melbourne had a historical connection to the Melbourne Cricket Club, while Hawthorn was based in the middle class, inner-eastern suburb of Hawthorn.
  • Both clubs, in contrast to the stronger Melbourne-based clubs, and the stronger interstate teams, had a relatively small membership base.
It is perhaps from a combination of these reasons that negotiations would proceed further between Melbourne and Hawthorn than between other potential merger partners.

Negotiations

The negotiations advanced considerably and settled on a number of key aspects of the proposed team. Speculation about ongoing merger negotiations often appeared in the mainstream media prior to the official announcement, with several key details leaking to the press. Key points related to the club's identity which were agreed upon during negotiations prior to the official announcement included that:
  • The new team's name would be "Melbourne" and would use Hawthorn's "Hawks" nickname
  • The new team's guernsey would resemble Melbourne's, except feature a gold 'V' and a gold Hawk
  • The amalgamated team would use Melbourne's red and blue with Hawthorn's gold
  • Hawthorn's Hawk would be the new team's logo
  • New club best and fairest award to be known as the Crimmins–Truscott Trophy
  • New club song combined Melbourne's theme song and Hawthorn theme song, lyrics were:
We're the Melbourne Hawks, We're the high-flying hawks!
We're the mighty Melbourne Hawks!
We play each game, and we play to win!
Watch out! We play it with a grin!
Every heart beats true for the gold, red and blue,
As we sing this song for you:
One for all and all for one, two will make us stronger...
Keep your eye on the Mighty Melbourne Hawks!
Some commentators noted that the merged team would more closely resemble Melbourne than Hawthorn and speculated whether Hawthorn suffered from a weaker bargaining position as a result of its weak financial situation.
Under the package offered by the AFL, the transitional arrangements for the merged club would be as follows:
  • A $6M payout from the AFL over three years, with the only condition that paying off creditors be the first priority
  • Ten home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year from 1997 until 1999, then alternating between nine and ten games until 2007.
  • A senior list of 44 players in 1997, reducing to 42 in 1998, before dropping to the standard 38 in 1999.
  • Unrestricted access to players from both Hawthorn's and Melbourne's lists when compiling the initial playing list.
  • Permission to exceed the league's salary cap by $300k in 1997, $200k in 1998 and $100k in 1999.
  • Free membership for children in 1997
  • A $225k advanced payout to implement and promote the merger, whether it happened or not

    Don Scott and "Operation Payback"

In the wake of the official merger announcement, Don Scott launched the "Operation Payback" campaign. Aided by the business acumen of former Pacific Dunlop executive Ian Dicker the campaign, which would be backed by other former Hawthorn footballers including Dermott Brereton and Brian Falconer, was multifaceted and included a number of aims:
  • To launch a motion officially opposing the merger proposal, and to present the anti-merger case, at the extraordinary general meeting where Hawthorn members would vote on the merger proposal
  • To run a fundraising campaign to alleviate Hawthorn's immediate debt problems
  • To secure business support for the survival of Hawthorn
  • To secure the support of prominent past and present footballers for the anti-merger campaign at Hawthorn

    Joe Gutnick

In the weeks following Scott's launch of the Operation Payback campaign, a similar anti-merger campaign was launched for the Melbourne Football Club by former premiership player Brian Dixon, who was aided by millionaire businessman Joseph Gutnick. Gutnick, a Melbourne supporter who had accumulated his wealth through investments in Western Australian mining, pledged to donate A$3 million to Melbourne if the merger vote was defeated.