Melbourne Hawks - Vote

Vote

Both the Hawthorn and Melbourne Football Clubs called extraordinary general meetings – Hawthorn held their meeting at the Camberwell Civic Centre, while Melbourne held its meeting at Dallas Brooks Hall. To the surprise of the respective clubs' boards, the meeting halls were filled, with more members and supporters of each team watching proceedings on large monitors outside. Entrepreneurial peddlers set up stalls selling merchandise along the long queues into the respective meeting halls.

The debates about the merger were passionate, with Scott (in a now famous moment) at one point holding up a mock-up of the Melbourne Hawks jumper, and proceeding to rip off a Velcro hawk and yellow V-neck to reveal a Melbourne jumper underneath. Prior to the commencement of the meetings, vocal anti-merger supporters chanted team songs and anti-merger slogans.

While Melbourne members (aided by a large bloc of proxy votes and the inability of all interested parties to get inside the hall to vote) voted 4,679 to 4,229 in favour of the merger, Hawthorn members overwhelming voted against it by a vote of 5241 to 2841 and the proposal was defeated. Large-scale resignations followed on both boards as those who had supported the merger fell on their swords; several prominent members of the anti-merger campaigns (including Dicker, Scott, Brereton, and Gutnick) would take senior executive or board positions at both clubs in the wake of the merger. The two sides continue to play in their original form to this day.