The Hawks Museum has published a new book that details the origins of the Hawthorn Football Club, titled The Road to Hawthorn – The Origins of the Hawthorn Football Club.
The book begins with the first recorded game of football in the Hawthorn district in 1860 and explores the various small football clubs that represented the Hawthorn district up to 1900.
It explains the establishment in 1902 of the present-day Hawthorn Football Club. The book marks the formative years in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association years (1902-1913) before graduating to the Victorian Football Association era (1914-1924) and concludes in 1925 when Hawthorn joined the VFL.
The book documents the personalities who set Hawthorn on its football journey. Alf Kosky and Cr J.C. Watts, who initialised the idea for the club, followed by J. W. Kennon, William Hulse, Matt and Tim Collins, Arthur Rademacher, Pat Burke, Hec Yeomans, Stan McKenzie, Jack Gill and Jim Jackson, and many others who laid the foundations for our great club.
The book features images of team photos, membership tickets, trophies, magazine montages – many seen for the first time in print. And it revisits forgotten achievements and special moments, including the Hawthorn Trades team winning three premierships from 1902-05; Emma Lord (mother of future club president Geoff Lord) selling brown and gold sprigs of flowers in 1914; the club’s record VFA score of 30.31.211 in round 10, 1922 against Prahran; and the club’s first VFL game in 1925.
The book is the same size as the museum’s previous publications, the 1961 and the 1971 books, with 178 pages that include new stories and illustrations of the Hawthorn Football Club prior to 1925.
The book costs $45 (add $15 if postage is required) and is available now in the Hawks Museum.
Enquiries hawksmuseum@hawthornfc.com.au or phone 03 9535 3075
