It was the end of the 2003 season and the one-time junior star, who had been handed the Hawks’ revered No. 5 jumper in only his third season, was being aggressively cajoled to find a new home, despite being under contract.

A series of injuries, including osteitis pubis, affected his form and proved the catalyst for his departure, along with a Hawks salary cap squeeze.

But some cutting words delivered from then Hawks chief executive Steven Leighton to his manager at the time sealed the deal and made Harford feel unwanted and unloved.

“It got a bit nasty,” Harford told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast.

“The club played hard ball and they were going to get me out, come hell or high water.

“I had to agree to (leave), as I had another year of a contract (to run). To do that, they had to push me out. They had to say some things that I would have liked them not to have said.

“Steve Leighton, the CEO, said to my manager Liam Pickering at that time: ‘He can rot in the Box Hill (Hawks) twos (reserves) for all that I care if he wants to stay. He’s not playing a game with us’ (in 2004).”

A one-time No. 8 draft selection, Harford had played 153 games with the Hawks to that stage, but he wanted more.

He had been determined to stick it out and fight his way through his body issues … until Leighton’s words enraged him.

“I never wanted to be traded,” he said.

“I wanted to be a one-club player. I wanted to be a Hawthorn player for my whole career.

“Now footy doesn’t give you that opportunity, or the luxury at times to dictate your career path. I wanted to stay and show them I was good enough again.”

But Leighton’s threat changed it all.

Harford knew he had no alternative but to look for a new home.

“Having contributed a fair bit (to the club) and being a fairly emotional soul at the best of times, that hurt,” he said of Leighton’s message.

“I was like ‘You can go and get stuffed, I’ve had enough of you’.

“I don’t know if he (Leighton) meant it or not, or if it was a line you need to say to make me feel aggrieved and want me to get out of the joint, which I absolutely did after that.”

DRAFT TEARS

From an early age, Harford dreamt of playing for his beloved Collingwood.

So he was crestfallen when a few years out from his draft year, the zone system was changed and a new under 18s competition independent of the AFL clubs was introduced.

The Parade College teenager figured he was headed for Sydney … until a call from the Magpies’ then recruiting manager Ricky Barham gave him a glimmer of hope.

“The great Ricky Barham called me on the morning of the draft and said: ‘We’re going to pick you at pick nine … we think you might get through’.

“I’m thinking ‘this is the best thing ever. I’m going to be a Magpie’.”

The Swans were considering him with picks two or three, with coach Ron Barassi sharing a glass of wine and a chat with Harford’s dad in Watsonia North leading up to the draft.

But when the Swans called the names of Anthony Rocca and Shannon Grant, Harford dared to dream of black and white again.

“Fitzroy and St Kilda had a couple of picks (before Collingwood). I was hoping they would go elsewhere, and they did.

“It got to pick eight, and the night before the draft Chris Pelchen from the Hawks rang me, just to wish me good luck. I thought ‘that’s very nice of him’.

“I said to him ‘good luck, I hope your first pick is going to be a great player’. I just didn’t expect it to be me. They called my name out … and knowing Collingwood was next … I was sitting there with my crutches and my plaster cast (for his broken leg).

“I was like ‘Oh God’.”

Harford couldn’t help himself. He broke down in tears in the car on the way home.

“I just lost it,” Harford recalled. “When the Hawks called my name out, I was devastated … for about three seconds. Then I worked out, I was going to a pretty good team and a pretty good club, with (Jason) Dunstall, (John) Platten, (Chris) Langford, and (Shane) Crawford was the emerging star. So I thought ‘I’m gonna be OK’.”

BRASH AND CRASH

Harford was a self confessed “fairly brash” young kid when he landed at Glenferrie Oval – the Hawks’ home base at the time – in the club’s rehabilitation group.

He copped an early reality check.

“Everyone else was at Xavier College, but the injured guys stayed at Glenferrie,” he said. ‘Pritch’ (Darrin Pritchard) and ‘Collo’ (Andy Collins) were also in the rehab group.”

“We were doing this handball (drill) and I got a bit competitive. I started abusing the old blokes. I said ‘you blokes’ time is up … it’s the new generation coming through’.

“This is about two weeks in.

“That’s sort of the way I’m built, to take the piss and have some fun. But Collo just started firing up. I thought ‘I’ve pressed the wrong buttons here’.

“Then we started doing a spin session … all the bikes faced the oval through the windows and there’s a pillar behind one of them.

“Pritch was on the one that was backing onto the pillar. I was having to get through in between to get to my bike. As I came back in, Pritch started to back up and squeezed me against the pillar, knowing exactly what he was doing, teaching the young fellow a lesson.”

‘IF I’M GOING DOWN, YOU’RE COMING WITH ME’

One of Hawthorn’s greatest players, Peter Knights, was Harford’s first AFL coach, but he was unceremoniously sacked at the end of the 1995 season.

Harford saw first-hand the pressure that Knights was under in his second season at the helm after taking the Hawks to the finals the previous season.

“Knightsy is one of the best humans and he did a lot for my career and guided me through that first phase,” he said.

“But I remember the pressure getting to him … it must have been late in the season … the second last or last round … at a team meeting in the Glenferrie changerooms.

“We all had our own seats. I’m front left, watching this man pace up and down in front of the group, thinking about what to say. I can’t remember the whole conversation, but it ended with ‘And if I’m going down, you’re coming with me’.

“I’m 18, all I want to do is play football, and the coach, the guy that I need to be there for me, is under enormous pressure. I felt horrible for him.”

Knights was sacked soon after, with Ken Judge coming in to replace him.

So who would be a coach?

Harford laughed when confronted with the question and said: ‘That’s right, it’s a mug’s game. We’re all lunatics.”

STAR ON THE RISE

By Harford’s third season, in 1997, he graduated to being one of Hawthorn’s brightest stars, and made his state debut for Victoria.

“The (Victorian) team was announced on the radio … I was named on the bench, and I was a bit flat with that,” he said with a smile.

“We got to Adelaide and in the team meeting Leigh (Matthews) puts the team up and I was on the wing. Lethal was playing ducks and drakes with the team.

“It was a bit of a changing of the guard as well with that team. Brad Johnson was playing his first state game. Aussie Jones and Lloydy (Matthew Lloyd) … we had a great game and I think we won by six points.

“In the end, I ended up tagging Craig Bradley. At three-quarter-time Lethal says: ‘I need you to sit on Braddles’. I’m well ahead of myself at this stage. I’m thinking to myself ‘Hang on Lethal, I’m on fire … It’s a state game; we don’t tag’.”

Harford said he would never forget the celebrations after the state game.

“We did the tour up and down Hindley Street … The day after I was on the Sunday Footy Show with Chris Grant … we were doing the handball and I was that hung over, I missed the board. I couldn’t see the board, let alone hit it.”

A year later, Harford was dropped for a game which shook his confidence.

“I was pretty full of myself, which in the end, was misplaced,” he said. “I started to get ahead of myself, cut corners and paid the price for it.”

“I was never a great athlete, so I couldn’t break a tag just through athleticism. My game was thinking about what was going to happen, read(ing) the play and craft.

“I decided I would just keep working … (thinking) I’d find a way through (but) I didn’t.”

‘I SIGNED MY DEATH WARRANT’

Harford was a massive fan of a young Sam Mitchell and wasn’t afraid to champion his cause … which ended up being to his own detriment.

“I remember this match committee meeting and they were talking about the future,” Harford recounted.

“I said to them ‘I will tell you what you need, we need more Sam Mitchells. We’ve got to get him in the team’.

“It was the worst thing I ever said, what an idiot. That’s my spot.

“I signed my death warrant. Sam came in and started to play really well. I was half broken and it ended up being a bad conversation to be involved in from my perspective, but it turned out OK for the footy club.”

Mitchell effectively took Harford’s position, and ultimately took over his Hawthorn No. 5 jumper when he was traded to Carlton at the end of 2003.

So why did he choose the Blues?

“Carlton was probably the only club that was interested,” he joked about the Blues who had been smashed with penalties after previous salary cap indiscretions.

“Darren Berry, the great cricketer, always calls me ‘steak knives’ because I was just the add on to the Brett Johnson deal,” he said.

“Denis Pagan (Blues coach) wanted Brett Johnson and apparently the story goes that John Hook, the famous (Hawthorn) footy manager, said: ‘You can have Johnson, but you have got to take Harford with him’.

“So I’ve gone from this State of Origin player, a couple of podiums in the B&F … to ‘You’ve got to take Harford with you’.”

He ended up playing nine games with the Blues in 2004, and had a contract for the following year, but becoming a father changed his outlook on a second year at the club.

“I decided that I didn’t really want to do this anymore,” he said of playing AFL football. “(I) went for a run pre-season one day. I’ve got 500 metres in and stopped, and walked home.”

After getting the tick off from his wife, Harford drove to Pagan’s Moonee Ponds home to tell him he was retiring … and leaving $120,000 on the table.

“Denis opened the door and he goes: ‘G’day son, I wasn’t expecting to see you here today’. I said ‘I just thought I would come and let you know that I think it’s time to hang them up … I’m gonna retire’.

“And without missing a beat – and this is just vintage Denis Pagan without missing a beat – he said: ‘Gee son, I think you made the right call there’.”

‘A SEISMIC MOMENT’

Having coached successfully at suburban level and as an assistant coach in the Collingwood AFLW program, Harford was approached to coach Carlton’s AFLW side.

In his first season, he helped to lift the Blues out of the doldrums into the 2019 AFLW grand final, played out in front of 53,034 fans, against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

At the time it was the record for a stand-alone women’s sporting event in Australia.

“To be a part of that women’s sport movement for a bit was pretty cool, and to see the evolution of it all,” he said. “That (grand final) day was pretty spectacular.”

Adelaide won the game by 45 points, but it was “a seismic day for women’s sport.”

“We came out in the first warm-up and I am thinking 15 or 20k would be a good number. It was free entry but it was a gorgeous day and the Crows were so good.”

Then Covid hit, prematurely ending the 2020 AFLW season after the Blues had streaked into a preliminary final.

“I reckon we would have (won it),” Harford said when asked if they would have won in 2020.

“I thought we were the best team in it. It was one of those what-if moments, but we had a bigger crisis to worry about. Still, that was a big kick in the plums, that one.”

‘2022 BROKE ME’

The double AFLW seasons of 2022 pushed Harford the coach to the brink,

“I was cooked, I shouldn’t have been there, I should have walked away after 2021,” he said. “That second season in 2022 was a disaster for me. I was totally out of energy, I was totally out of gas, I could feel it fracturing. 2022 broke me as coach … then the review came and it was a pretty straightforward process after that.”

Carlton instituted a review of its women’s program following that 2022 season, which Harford knew would not end well for him.

“Someone told me it (the review) was coming,” he said. “I did the numbers. In the previous five years, the review (outcomes) were six and nil.

“I was under significant pressure.”

Text messages from Blues footy boss Brad Lloyd, with whom he played in a 1999 Hawks pre-season premiership, and CEO Brian Cook set up a meeting the next day that he knew was going to end in his departure from the club.

“They said ‘We need to see you at the club tomorrow, come’ … it’s never a good sign.

“I just got my whiteboard in the coaches’ room chalked up 7-0 (referencing a review that had claimed another coach). It was a little gag for me, no one else knew what it meant.

“(At the meeting) he (Lloyd) said: ‘Do you want to hear about the review?’ I said ‘Not really’.

“I shook hands and walked out. I was there for 10 minutes, it was five minutes too long. It was absolutely the right decision. They knew it, I knew it, we just needed someone to say it.”