FIVE-TIME Hawthorn premiership great Gary Ayres is returning to the club in a new role ahead of the Hawks' 100th year in the VFL/AFL.
The 64-year-old will join the administration at Waverley Park and work with former premiership teammate Rodney Eade.
Ayres will help the club continue to raise funds for the Kennedy Community Centre, the club's new training and administration base in Dingley.
After spending 16 seasons at Hawthorn from the late 1970s through to the early 1990s, Ayres will return to the club in an official capacity for the first time in over 30 years.
Since retiring at the end of 1993 after 269 games in the brown and gold, Ayres has spent most of his life coaching at various levels across the country.
Ayres moved to Geelong after hanging up his boots and coached Geelong for five seasons, before moving to South Australia to coach Adelaide between 2000 and 2004.
After two years as an assistant coach at Essendon, Ayres led Port Melbourne to two premierships in the VFL across 14 seasons at the Borough.
Hawthorn's premiership teams in the 1980s and 1990s were stacked full of iconic figures – Jason Dunstall, Dermott Brereton, Michael Tuck, Robert DiPierdomenico and John Platten – but Ayres has one of the best resumes from that era.
Not only did he feature in five premierships – plus five night premierships – he became the first player to win two Norm Smith Medals and remains one of only four to be multiple recipients, which is why the AFL Coaches Association named the player of the finals in his honour in 2016.