Early Life
The son of Allan and Margaret Hird, James Hird was born in Canberra on 4 February 1973. His father worked in the public service, while his mother was a teacher. The pair met in Melbourne, before they moved to the Australian capital in 1969. Allan, who has previously played four games for the Essendon Football Club in 1966–67, initiated the move, enabling him to be player coach of Eastlake in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) football competition. Hird remained his parents' only child for close to three years until Amilia was born and Katherine two years later. Despite starting his life in the suburb of Ainslie, Hird soon moved to a traditional 1970s house in Latham, an outer northern suburb. The house was within a kilometre of a creek, and Hird and his friends would often ride their bikes to the creek to fish or hunt for yabbies. When Hird was in high school, he moved to the suburb of Reid, and lived near four large sporting ovals.
An active yet shy child, Hird took ballet and piano lessons as a child, as his mother wanted him to be well-rounded. However, the piano lessons only lasted a couple of years and ballet lasted "much less". He also participated in rugby league and soccer, both more popular than Australian rules football in Canberra. Being the smallest child in his Year Seven class, Hird often got knocked around playing league — the more physical of the three sports. Few of Hird's friends knew how to play Australian rules, thus forcing him to play league and soccer significantly more.
He was recruited from the Ainslie Football Club in Canberra, in the 1990 AFL draft. Due to a serious hip injury along with other injuries in his junior football career, he was not selected until pick number 79, Essendon's 7th and one of the last in the draft.
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