John Hook to retire after many years on the Victorian football scene

John Hook spent 23 years at Hawthorn Football Club and 11 with AFL Victoria. But his time in football administration is coming to a close.

John Hook was a goer, but he admits he wasn’t good enough to play league football.

He did play in the Under 19s for Hawthorn and he did make the senior list after his 17th year, but the highest level of the game was beyond him.

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Instead he found a happy home at the rung below it, the old VFA, playing more than 100 games for Camberwell.

If Hook gave Hawthorn no great service on the ground, he excelled for the club off it, first as a development officer and recruiter scouring the bush and the ‘burbs, then as football manager.

John Hook (second from left) during a trade week with the likes of Dermott Brereton, Gary Buckenara, Greg Swan, Mick Malthouse and Neil Balme.

He’s a Hawks life member, recognition for 23 years as an official. And for more than a decade he has been a member of the AFL Victoria executive, working in talent and competition management of the VFL and TAC Cup.

All told, he’s spent almost 35 years in Victorian football administration.

It is soon to end for the man known simply as “Hooky’’. At the age of 66 he is retiring.

“December 14. Friday week. She’s all over mate,’’ he was saying on Tuesday from his AFL Victoria office, which overlooks a flank at Ikon Park, Carlton.

If the old Hawthorn was to come out in him he would say he had a damn good view if he didn’t have to watch that pack of Carlton so-and-sos train.

“Must admit, over the last few days I’ve been thinking about it (retirement). I’ve worked for the greater part of my life, been disciplined, get up, go to work, blah blah blah,’’ he said. “So it’s going to be an adjustment. I don’t think you know how it will work until it happens.’’

He thinks he’s been lucky to work in football, a game he loves, for so long.

John Hook fronting the press after Hawthorn captain Shane Crawford was suspended at the tribunal.

The time he spent as a Hawthorn hopeful came in handy when he saw the Hawks were advertising for a development officer in October, 1981.

It was one of the first VFL-funded positions.

Brian Coleman coached Hook in the Under 19s and later became a board member. He had also got to know John Kennedy, Ron Cook and Sef Dunn.

“I was lucky. Because of them I probably got the gig over more credentialed VFL players,’’ he said.

His role evolved to take in recruiting and then in 1988 he became football manager, overseeing trades and the salary cap.

It was a glorious era for the Hawks. Hook was involved in a string of premierships and with a slew of champions: Jason Dunstall, Michael Tuck, Gary Ayres, Dermott Brereton, John Platten and Darren Jarman.

He adored coach Allan Jeans.

“The public persona of Allan Jeans is of a dour copper,’’ he said. “But he had a great sense of humour. He liked a bit of fun and a joke. He was such a great man-manager. That’s why he was such a great coach and footy person.’’

John Hook was instrumental in Hawthorn recruiting Jason Dunstall.

Hook liked to keep a hand in recruiting and has vivid memories of flying to Tasmania to watch Queenslander Dunstall play in a state game. He kicked four goals. Hook spoke to him straight after the match. Dunstall told him he was going to spend a week with Fitzroy. “That’s fine, but whatever you do don’t sign anything,’’ Hook replied. “We’re really interested.’’ He got his man. And Hawthorn got one of football’s great goalkickers.

He also had a hand in Jarman’s arrival to the Hawks, taken from the clutches of Adelaide via a trade with Brisbane. It was more about doing a deal than sniffing out a talent. “Ray Charles could have picked him out as a player,’’ he said. Hook swears he never saw a better kick of the football.

He also had a lot of time for another South Australian recruited to Glenferrie, Tony Hall. Hook has been known to use a few colourful words and mention of Hall brings out of a few of them.

“Did his knee in an effing state game, tackled by his own teammate in Andy Collins, in an effing mudheap,’’ he said. “He was an absolute star, Tony Hall.’’

Tony Hall after injury his knee in a State of Origin match. “Did his knee in an effing state game, tackled by his own teammate in Andy Collins, in an effing mudheap,’’ John Hook said.

It wasn’t all a bowl of cherries.

Tumultuous times came with the proposed amalgamation with Melbourne; friendships were fractured. “I saw a lot of greats of Hawthorn being pilloried, people like Peter Hudson,’’ Hook said. He said that for all its success Hawthorn had no money, failing to turn support into memberships. The proposed merger was ultimately “the catalyst for people to get off their backsides’’.

Hawthorn was seen as the “family club’’. But Hook said it was ruthless when the occasion demanded.

“You had to be. It’s a tough industry. You had to make hard decisions. And we did. Like when Dermott left. ‘Tucky’ left virtually after we won a flag. They were calls, right or wrong, made for the betterment of Hawthorn.’’

John Hook meeting the press at Hawthorn training.

Years after Hook helped recruit him, Dunstall was acting CEO when Hook left the club in 2004.

“My time was up,’’ he said. “I’d been there 23 years. They wanted a change and I needed a change too.’’

Hook thought his record and reputation would bring offers from other clubs, but his phone stayed silent.

He went off to Bowls Victoria and did some scouting for Collingwood.

In 2007 former Hawthorn coach Peter Schwab, then the CEO of Football Victoria, brought him back to football, as state operations manager.

He quickly came to compare the TAC Cup to the zone system he worked in, and thought the Under 18 competition far superior.

As for the VFL, he’s seen alignments change, clubs disappear (and in Frankston’s case reappear) and the Development League (reserves) scrapped.

Hook said the standard of the league was excellent and the number of players drafted from it this year was proof of its importance.

He has been supportive of the stand-alone clubs, reflecting his time in the VFA.

In 1978 the Bryan Mace-coached Frankston defeated Hook’s Camberwell in the Division 2 grand final. Four decades on Hook was AFL Vic’s representative on the Dolphins’ board.

“It’s funny how the wheel turns,’’ he said.

“But it does eventually turn when you’ve been involved in the game a long time. And I have been in it a long time. Footy’s been very good to me and I hope I’ve been able to do some good for the game.’’