AFL 2022 news: What premiership player Andy Gowers can bring to Hawks if he replaces Jeff Kennett

Desperate to ensure Hawthorn doesn’t stumble any further, presidential candidate Andy Gowers has revealed in an exclusive interview what needs to happen at the troubled club.

Hawthorn presidential candidate Andy Gowers says he is the man to navigate the club’s challenging path out of the First Nations racism allegations, believing the club has lost respect across the competition since its premiership heroics.

The club’s 1991 premiership wingman Gowers told the Herald Sun in an exclusive interview he had decided to run after vice-president Peter Nankivill emerged as the president-elect despite heading the club’s nominations committee’s bid to find Jeff Kennett’s successor.

The pair are close friends and had children in the same year level at Xavier College but Gowers, also on that nominations committee, said the board’s decision “doesn’t sit right with me”.

Gowers, a former board director, is supportive of the club’s youth-led resurgence but said the club’s potential merger with Melbourne so soon after the 1991 flag was a reminder of the “slippery slope” a club could slide down.

Members will vote on the presidency at the club’s December 13 AGM and Gowers says with the AFL investigation into First Nations racism to be returned in that month he is the man to help the club chart its course out of that controversy.

Andy Gowers is determined to return the Hawks to their former glory days if he is elected new president.

“The Egan report was released and when the details of that emerged, that is clearly something we need to have a deep hard think about. When the outcomes of that independent panel come to be, that is going to need a compassionate and appropriate response from the club. I would like to play a role in ensuring that happens,” Gowers told the Herald Sun.

“I wonder whether as a former player and a former director I could help. It’s a question I ask and I would like to think the answer is yes. I have had some people close to me saying, “Do you want to get involved now?” My answer is absolutely. My heart goes out to everyone involved. When I read the story on the ABC I was just crestfallen.

“There is no question everyone involved is hurting so that’s not a good state of affairs but we clearly need to let the AFL independent panel do its job. So we need to wait and see what comes out of that and give support to those involved in whatever shape and format is appropriate.”

Gowers played 89 games at Hawthorn over seven seasons then 51 with the Brisbane Bears and Lions, with the father of former Dogs player Billy selling his wealth management business last year.

He attempted to nominate to return to the Hawthorn board but was convinced he should instead be the head of the nominations committee that would secure Jeff Kennett’s successor.

Instead Nankivill became that chair, with the Hawks board deciding there was no suitable candidate and the commercial lawyer should replace Kennett.

Peter Nankivill and Andy Gowers will fight out who replaces outgoing president Jeff Kennett.

“I am a good friend of Peter and our boys were at the same school in the same year,” says Gowers of the head-to-head battle for the club’s presidency.

“The Nankivill and Gowers families go way back. I sat on the nominations committee and the end result of that process was the board nominated the chair of the nomination committee.

“Regardless of who it is, that doesn’t sit right and I made it known at the time that was my feeling. I watched and listened and contemplated what I would do. Then I decided the right thing was for me to volunteer to return and help guide the ship.”

Gowers spoke to Jeff Kennett for hours in the president’s Anglesea garden last year as he pondered a board move and says he deserves credit for his outstanding service.

But he believes standards at the club have slipped in a manner that has seen them lose respect in and out of Hawthorn.

“The other thing that is very relevant to me is that I played in one flag in 1991 and only five years later we were facing a possible merger with another club in Melbourne. If I look at our situation it is seven years since we played in a flag and I don’t want to stand around watching and hoping we don’t fall down the slippery slope. So I decided to do something about it.”

Stuart Fox, Andy Gowers (centre) and Josh Gibson in 2015.

Gowers is proud of his contribution as the Brisbane Bears morphed into the Lions then moving into business as well as succeeding Simon Lethlean as the coach of the VAFA’s Old Xaverians.

Having grown up around football clubs and spent his entire life in them he believes he knows what makes teams like Hawthorn thrive.

“At the moment we have one person on the board (former captain Richie Vandenberg) with AFL experience and I think it’s an interesting scenario. My view is we need a bit more football experience on the board. If I am elected as president I won’t be running the football program and nor would it be appropriate. To have had someone with knowledge of AFL and having run out onto the field and having played in an AFL flag doesn’t help, so hopefully I could be a sounding board at times.”

Ex-Andrews minister joins Hawthorn board fight

Hawthorn is headed for a presidential showdown with 1991 premiership player Andy Gowers lodging papers to nominate for the presidency Jeff Kennett ally Peter Nankivill had hoped to inherit.

The Herald Sun understands former Hawks director and 140-game AFL wingman Gowers lodged his papers on Wednesday afternoon ahead of the 5pm deadline and hopes he will be voted in as the next Hawthorn president.

Former deputy premier James Merlino has also nominated for the Hawthorn board, but not as the president.

The self-confessed passionate Hawthorn fan would be a valuable member of the club’s board given they are attempting to win state government funding for their new Dingley headquarters.

Merlino has been the state government minister for education and mental health and is retiring this year after 20 years in parliament.

Current president Jeff Kennett has admitted the club missed out on a $15 million that other clubs were able to access because of his strong criticism of the Andrews government.

Merlino said on Wednesday night he was worried about the direction of the Hawthorn football club and determined to be elected to the board to enact change.

“My dad stepped off a boat from Italy in 1961. One of the very first things my Uncle Joe did was take Dad to see the Hawks play at Glenferrie. We have been a brown and gold family ever since,” Merlino said.

“The Hawks have given me so much in my lifetime. Now, with my parliamentary career ending after two decades, it’s the right time for me to give something back.

Former state deputy premier James Merlino has nominated for the Hawthorn board.

“I’m worried about where the club is at right now, so I am putting my hand up to help. It’s as simple as that.

“I am proud to do it with the support of people like Ian Dicker, who I met in the 1990s, as a local government councillor in Melbourne’s outer east. I worked with Ian, and many others, in trying to save Waverley Park.

“While we didn’t win that battle, the subsequent securing of the ground as the new home for the Hawks was a massive boost to our club, and an incredible legacy of Ian Dicker, the man who saved the club in 1996.

“I think we need good people to step up again. I am putting up my hand to help.”

Gowers had believed he had brokered a deal last year which would see him standing down from nominating for the Hawthorn board in return for leading the club’s nominations committee to replace president Kennett.

Another challenger has entered the race to replace Jeff Kennett at the helm at Hawthorn.

Instead when that committee was formed Hawks vice-president Nankivill was appointed as its head and then became the nominee to replace Kennett.

Gowers was upset at the lack of process and accountability from the Hawthorn board for key decisions including the botched succession plan involving Alastair Clarkson which saw the club paying their four-time premiership coach $900,000 not to coach them.

The Hawks said at the time none of the potential candidates to replace Kennett had the required expertise so Nankivill, the club’s vice-president for the past five years, was elevated to president elect.

The club has not yet announced an AGM date to vote in its president but Gowers had been nominated by Hawks figures including club legend Gary Ayres.

Andy Gowers with son Will Gowers.

He will run on a platform of accountability and transparency at board level, keen for a review of the off-field operations.

He is a strong supporter of Sam Mitchell’s rebuild and his tenure at the club but believes it would be better served by change from the current philosophy.

Gowers is returning from Paris but is expected to outline his pitch to members in coming days, with Hawthorn confirming to Gowers his nomination for the club’s presidency has been lodged.

Andy Gowers is a strong supporter of Sam Mitchell’s rebuild but believes the club would be better served by change from the current philosophy.

Nankivill said recently in accepting the board’s decision to elevate him as president-elect that he had been reluctant to take on the presidency but ultimately decided to run.

“Initially I was reluctant… but the way things have transpired is that the board formed the view that in terms of what we need at the club at the moment and the stability as we embark upon so many almost generational initiatives, a little stability and knowledge of those initiatives was a good thing,” he said.

“So that led to my change of mind and change of heart, and after talking to my family it’s the opportunity to serve.”

Hawthorn is currently working through the findings of a bombshell internally commissioned report that saw shocking allegations against former coach Alastair Clarkson from First Nations players.

But Kennett said recently the club was not in crisis despite those findings.

The Cultural Safety Review found a “strong theme” that there was “little regard” for cultural safety or family values during 2010-2016 through interviews with 17 former players.

“Bullying and intimidation tactics were reported to be used to isolate First Nations players from their families and communities,” the report by Phil Egan stated.