South Australia’s football family mourns legend Bob Hammond
One of the most decorated and respected men in South Australian Football, Bob Hammond, has died at the age of 78.
One of the most decorated and respected men in South Australian Football, Bob Hammond, has died at the age of 78.
Hammond passed away on Saturday after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He will be remembered for his complete contribution to football as a player, coach and administrator.
He rightly takes his place in the Australian football, SA Football and Adelaide Football Club Halls of Fame. He was a life member at North Adelaide and Norwood after he emerged as a teenage defender from a working class family in Kilburn to become a giant of the game.
“I can’t think of an individual who has contributed more to SA football. Player, coach administrator. He was there from the very first day of the Adelaide Football Club. What a foundation he put in place. Loved and respected, a great loss,” inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes said.
Hammond’s son, Craig, thanked the community for its support as the family came to terms with his passing.
“Dad lived a full and busy life and we have a lifetime of memories from the guidance and support he provided to everyone in our family,” Craig said.
The family is currently working through details for a service to honour Hammond’s life in line with COVID-19 restrictions and will make those public when they are finalised.
Hammond was born in Perth in 1942, where his father was a fitter and turner in the air force before the family returned to Adelaide at the end of the war.
He left school early and worked two jobs to support himself and his family including selling the Football Budget on weekends.
He played his under-age football with Kilburn before making his league debut with North Adelaide in 1960 and he went on to play in their premiership that year at just 18 years old.
The strong defender played 234 games for the Roosters from 1960 to 1973 – broken up by a two-year stint in Port Pirie from 1966 where he worked for Dunlop Tyres and won two premierships as a player/coach – before returning to North Adelaide for two more flags in 1971 and 1972.
His last game for North Adelaide was the 1973 grand final when they lost to Glenelg by seven points.
Hammond was planning to work as an export manager for a furniture company when Norwood asked him to coach. He joined the Redlegs in 1974 as a player/coach and played 14 games before coaching them to a premiership in 1975 – which ended a 25-year drought – and again in 1978, helping to resurrect the club.
He also represented SA seven times as a player, including in the infamous win over Victoria at the MCG in 1963.
“I was fortunate enough to crack it at the right time for a game to join that band of central minded people who wanted to beat Victoria and on the MCG, there were 10,000 people at the airport to greet the side home because the feat was recognised in South Australia and some said it was bigger than the Beatles,” Hammond said in 2015.
Hammond’s coaching career also included an interim stint with Sydney for eight games in 1984.
When his playing and coaching days were finished, Hammond became one of the game’s most respected administrators, serving on Norwood’s board from 1981 to 1990, and then being named Adelaide Football Club’s inaugural chairman in 1991.
He held the role at the Crows until 2000 and was at the helm as they won back-to-back AFL premierships in 1997 and 1998.
He was the inaugural inductee into Adelaide’s Hall of Fame in 2015 and the club named the players’ race at Adelaide Oval in his honour.
Hammond was also an AFL Commissioner from 2001 to 2011 and inducted into the Australian football Hall of Fame in 2015.
“I think (as a player) is where you have the most enjoyment and the most camaraderie, coaching is next and administration is next,” he said at the time.
“When you are involved at club level, you live the game, if you’re beaten on the Saturday you don’t sleep on the Saturday night.
“The sense of belonging is very strong, the sense of making new friends is all part of being in a club situation, and that applied to the commission as well because it was those on the commission I will remain friends (with) for life.”
AFL chairman Richard Goyder praised Hammond’s contribution to the game at all levels.
“Across more than 160 years of the history of Australian football, just 16 administrators have been honoured as a member of the Hall of Fame for their contribution in building our game from its humble beginnings,” Goyder said.
“Bob served Australian football as an esteemed coach and club administrator, before taking on the task of building the overall strength of our sport as a Commissioner, working for a decade to build our game in every part of our cities, communities and country regions.
“He had the ability to look at what was good for the whole of the game, and to drive towards those outcomes, coming from a background of success at every club he had been a part of through his lifetime.
“Above all, he will be remembered as a wonderful strong and hard defender for his beloved North Adelaide, a member of their Team of the Century, and in that rare club of Roosters who was a part of three separate premiership teams, yet equally beloved at Norwood for delivering the club out of the wilderness.
“On behalf of the AFL Commission, our clubs, the SANFL and its clubs and the wider game, our thoughts are with his family and close friends and we are grateful for what Bob has given us across his lifetime in football,” he said.
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