New Hawthorn captain Ben Stratton has lost the mullet but he won’t be changing anything else

Ben Stratton never considered himself leadership material but his teammates always thought otherwise, and a fork-in-the-road moment two years ago ultimately put him on the path towards the Hawthorn captaincy.

The most notable first observation is that he’s wearing shoes.

Ben Stratton has strode into the cafe adjoining Hawthorn’s Waverley training base and is pressing the flesh with the staff who’ve already revealed they love “Stratts”.

It soon becomes apparent why and on top of that it soon becomes apparent he’s not about to change despite his new gig.

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The three-time premiership defender is a couple of weeks into the job of being the 36th captain of the Hawthorn Football Club.

His appointment may have surprised some with the highlight of his first press conference as skipper being the fact he did it in bare feet.

In many ways that sums up Stratton. He’s very much his own man and those expecting the rough edges to be polished, should think again.

The historically media-shy Stratton admits he’s still getting used to the all the attention.

“I’ve been dodging this for 10 years,” he says pointing to the tape rec”order on the table.

It’s not that he’s not a good speaker, it’s more about the fact Stratton comes from the old school of letting actions do the talking.

That’s why his teammates overwhelming endorsed him to replace Jarryd Roughead believing his ruthless streak on the field made him a standout leader.

“I can’t fake it,” he says about whether the captaincy will change him.

“People will see straight through me if I start using big words or just not being me. You see some guys do that but I can’t make it up.”

So how did the techno-music loving hipster from Fitzroy whose mullet-style haircut was the talk of the competition last year become captaincy material?

He says it’s been a slow burn but reveals there was a fork-in-the-road moment two years ago which ultimately put him on the path.

Hawthorn skipper Ben Stratton sits beside a mural of himself at Waverly. Picture: Michael Klein

Stratton had been part of a second-tier leadership group during Luke Hodge’s captaincy reign but never considered himself a leader.

“I was still just playing footy and having fun,” he explains.

“Then in 2017 I’d been selected in the leadership group but I wasn’t playing much footy, I was getting injured all the time.

“So I would rock up to the leadership meetings and I would have nothing to say. I was literally just ticking boxes coming into the club and I actually wasn’t enjoying footy at all.”

Stratton confided with then fitness coach Andrew Russell, expressing his concerns about where his career was heading.

“It was weird and at the end of the year I had a pretty good discussion with our head fitness coach and I just said, ‘I’m not really enjoying myself, I’ve got no spark. What can we do?’, he said.

“Out of that we sort of started working on my leadership, it gave me a new challenge and it gave me a little bit of purpose when I came to the club, it gave me something to concentrate on.

“So I suppose from that point forward I have been pretty motivated in that area.

“It’s probably helped me as a player as well but helped me as a person first and foremost.”

Russell explained to Stratton that he was considered a leader by his peers and that basically he should start acting like one.

“It was about challenging yourself to be the best leader you can,” Stratton says.

“It gave me a purpose and I started loving rocking up and I started getting excited about footy again. It was cool.”

Stratton has always let his actions do the talking. Picture: Michael Klein

He played 23 games last year before a hamstring injury forced him out of the semi-final against Melbourne

Then when Roughead made the call in November to relinquish the captaincy, Stratton suddenly found himself the centre of industry debate about who would be the Hawks next skipper.

“Roughy called it pretty early so then for pretty much the whole summer you were getting all these questions,” he says.

“It was really weird because by the end of it we were sick of answering, ‘Who was going to be the next captain?’.

“I think the good thing was there was no standout, in the past it has been pretty easy to pick who it was going to be.

“It could have been any one of three or four guys and I think we all just went about our business and no-one was really putting themselves out there going, ‘I want to be captain’.

“That is probably a good thing for the club because no matter who got it, the other boys were going to support him and that’s what it has felt like.

“We are all captains really, that’s how I see it.”

Forward Jack Gunston is his stand alone vice-captain with Liam Shiels, Isaac Smith, Jaeger O’Meara and Ben McEvoy making up the leadership group.

The mullet is gone from Ben Stratton. Picture: Michael Klein

Stratton found out he’d got the job when coach Alistair Clarkson turned up on his doorstep although he wasn’t home.

“I was out at a BBQ and rocked home and here was Clarko sitting in my lounge with a bottle of red wine.

“He’d been there for about 20 minutes with my girlfriend and housemate who’d just moved in. As I walked in he said, ‘Congratulations mate, you’re captain’.”

Clarkson then urged Stratton to FaceTime his parents in Western Australia.

His mother Mary-Lynne, couldn’t believe it and kept screaming ‘What?” while his father Peter started reeling off the legends of Hawthorn who’d previously captained the club such as John Kennedy, Don Scott, Leigh Matthew and Michael Tuck.

“I was a bit gobsmacked,” he admits.

“It’s pretty hard to comprehend really (that you’re in that group).”

Stratton knows he’ll have to work on a few things particularly when it comes to functions given he’s hopeless at remembering names and isn’t really a fan of talking about footy.

“You’re around footy all the time and I would rather meet someone and be in a conversation about something they do, their job or what interests they have.”

Music and surfing are Stratton’s escape from the football bubble.

He’s known in the Melbourne music scene as a DJ of note having performed at several clubs around town and loves nothing more than putting on the headphones at home and doing his thing.

“From a young age my sister (Sarah-Jane) and I played piano,” Stratton explains. “I think that is probably where the love of music started. Mum made me do lessons and at the time I hated it.

“But now I’m so happy I did it as I learnt how to read music and stuff which helped when I was older and started to get into electronic music.”

The best gig he’s been to was in Berlin where the clubs were “just amazing” while he likes a few of the new festivals which are starting to pop up in Australia with a “real European vibe”.

Having grown up in Yallingup, just near Margaret River, surfing has always been a part of his life and his favourite spot in Victoria is 13th Beach at Barwon Heads.

Given he turned 30 on March 1, the obvious question is what Stratton has planned post-football?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“I definitely should start thinking about it, shouldn’t I?”

He does have a business interest in a beer label called Nobel Boy along with former teammate Sam Grimley and Essendon star Joe Daniher.

“It literally came about when we were sitting in a pub, just a few mates coming up with an idea,” Stratton explains.

“We wanted to do something together, it didn’t really matter what, we just wanted a project to do.

“It started off as a hobby, we initially walked into a brewer and had no idea what we were talking about but we knew how we wanted the beer to taste and it’s gone from there.”

They came up with a pale ale, which they get brewed over the border in Goulburn, and got it on tap in a few pubs around Fitzroy before bringing out cans of the beer over the past 18 months.

Stratton’s ruthless streak made him the standout choice to skipper the Hawks. Picture: Getty Images

The Nobel Boy crew — the name comes from a line in a Morgan Freeman movie — are now looking at introducing a lager into the range.

There can’t be a conversation with Stratton without mentioning the mullet which he shaved off in December, raising thousands of dollars for charity.

He admits he misses the long haired look which took 17 months to grow.

“I loved it and it was a fun year when I had it. I got attached to it and I kind of miss it a little bit to be honest.”

More pressing issues for Stratton is leading Hawthorn into a new season without its best player Tom Mitchell who broke his leg in the pre-season.

He says he’s excited about the young kids who are stepping up to fill the void in the midfield and is confident the Hawks will be around the mark again.

As for his captaincy strategy ahead of Round 1 against Adelaide, in a typical Stratton way he’s keeping it simple: “Toss the coin and rev the boys up before the game. That’s all you have to do, isn’t it?”