Merger Game
The end of the 1996 season saw Melbourne and Hawthorn play each other in the last round of that season. The "Merger Game" as it was called, was a spirited contest, as it was a likely possibility that it would be the last Hawthorn vs. Melbourne contest and, as the result that Melbourne could not make the finals and Hawthorn needed to win the game by any margin to have any chance to contest the 1996 finals series, many fans saw this game as a last chance to see their team play football.
63,196 fans went to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to see Dunstall kick 10 goals and the Hawks win by one point. In a now-famous moment of defiance to both the league and his team's board, Chris Langford (Hawthorn's full back) took off his Hawthorn jumper and proudly held it above his head while leaving the field. Prior to the game, an 'anti-merger' rally, led by Scott, was held at Hawthorn's then training ground, Glenferrie Oval.
Later in the round, Richmond lost to the North Melbourne by a large margin. This loss ensured that Hawthorn were playing in the finals. Hawthorn would get knocked out by the Sydney Swans, by one goal, in the first week of the 1996 finals, a week after the merger votes.
Read more about this topic: Melbourne Hawks
Famous quotes containing the word game:
“The indispensable ingredient of any game worth its salt is that the children themselves play it and, if not its sole authors, share in its creation. Watching TV’s ersatz battles is not the same thing at all. Children act out their emotions, they don’t talk them out and they don’t watch them out. Their imagination and their muscles need each other.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)