The last five home and away clashes between Hawthorn and Geelong have been decided by margins of less than two goals.

The Hawks won by four points in Launceston in 2007, while the Cats have won the past four home and away matches, all at the MCG - by 11 points (2008), 8 (2009), 1 (2009) and by 9 in Round 2 this season.

In total, Hawthorn and Geelong have played each other 144 times, with Geelong holding a nine win lead in the head-to-head 76 to 67 (with one draw).  At the MCG, the record is 6-4 in Geelong’s favour.



Hawthorn’s three point win against the Bulldogs on Friday night extended the Hawks’ recent good record in games decided by points points or fewer.  In the past five seasons, the Hawks have won eight and lost just two of the close ones.

Overall, in games decided by six points or fewer, Hawthorn has won 99 and lost 100, with nine draws.  2010 is now one of seven seasons which has produced three Hawthorn wins by six points or fewer (the others were 1934, 1954, 1978, 1987, 1989 and 2003), only exceeded by the 1999 and 2001 seasons which each delivered four such wins.



Last Friday night’s crowd of 47,454 was a record for a home and away game between Hawthorn and the Bulldogs.  It beat the previous record of 45,527 set at Docklands in Round 22, 2000.  It remains the second lowest record against a fellow Victorian team, narrowly behind the one against North Melbourne (47,705 at the MCG in 1993), but ahead of St Kilda (43,181 at Waverley in 1997).



Sad news during the past week that 1950s Hawthorn player Clayton ‘Candles’ Thompson passed away at the age of 80.

Thompson played 50 games from 1954 to 1956, kicking 54 goals, but the bare statistics fail to capture Thompson’s significance in Hawthorn history.  He was the first ‘boom’ recruit from interstate to come to the Club and the fact that he was over 6ft 6in tall added to the sense of excitement his arrival at Hawthorn generated.

An excellent player at Sturt in the SANFL, Thompson had won All-Australian selection when he was the leading goal-kicker at the 1953 Interstate Carnival.  There was much surprise in the football world when lowly Hawthorn was the VFL club which managed to secure his services.

Never before had Hawthorn received the amount of press coverage that his first game against Melbourne at Glenferrie in Round 3 1954 received - articles covered every moment in his day and he also provided the Club with further publicity by writing a weekly column.  A key element in his celebrity was his height - at 198cm he was a giant of his era.  One important by-product of the coverage was that it convinced a young Bendigo boy called Graham Arthur that the Hawks were going places, and thus he chose it over the other clubs chasing his services.

After kicking 24 goals in his first two seasons (including 4 in a game on 3 occasions), Thompson’s third season saw him moved to the back pocket and many considered his final game, against Fitzroy in Round 18 1956, to have been his finest in brown and gold.  Returning to Adelaide in 1957 and he resumed at Sturt and finished second in the 1959 Magarey Medal.  He twice won the Sturt Best & Fairest and topped the club goal-kicking on three occasions.  In 2005, Thompson was inducted into the SA Football Hall of Fame.



Hawthorn has won more matches in Round 15 than in any other round.  The Club has won 45, lost 38 and had two draws.  The next best rounds for wins are Rounds three and 16 with 43 each.

In the 27 seasons from 1970 to 1996, Hawthorn’s Round 15 return was 24 wins and only three losses (in 1973, 1980 and 1990). Then in the next ten years, the Hawks won only once in Round 15 (in 2002), before returning to the winning list in the past three years against Richmond (2007), Sydney (2008) and North Melbourne (2009).



While Round 15 may have been a good round for Hawthorn overall it has rarely been so in years ending in ‘0’.

Twice, in 1930 and 1980, years ending in ‘0’ have seen Hawthorn thrashed by this week’s opponent Geelong.  In the former year, Hawthorn suffered, an 82 point thrashing at Corio Oval while, in the latter, the margin was 80 points at Waverley. 

Remarkably the Hawthorn team which managed a score of just 4.13.37 on that July day 30 years ago was composed almost entirely of past or future Premiership players - 19 of the 20, the one exception being Robert Wilkinson. It included all the big names of Matthews, Tuck, Knights, Scott and Moore.  In contrast, Geelong had only one Premiership player in its team and he was a former Hawk, Kelvin Matthews, who had played in the Hawks’ 1976 Flag.  Ironically, in the previous season of 1979, Round 15 had seen a much-weaker Hawthorn team on paper (just 16 past or future Premiership players and no Matthews or Scott) come from 31 points behind at half-time to beat Geelong by one point.

Both 20 years ago and 10 years ago in Round 15, the Hawks were thrashed by the season’s eventual runners-up - Essendon (by 75 points) at Princes Park in 1990 and Melbourne (by 69 points) at the MCG in 2000.



The individual goal-kicking record for a Hawthorn player versus Geelong is 12 by Jason Dunstall in 1990 and 1992, while Wally Culpitt kicked 10 against them in 1944.

The best individual return for a Hawthorn player in Round 15 is the 12 goals recorded by Peter Hudson in 1971, against St Kilda, the team Hawthorn was to meet later that year in both the Second Semi and Grand Final.



Anyone interested in introducing their children to the history of Hawthorn should consider taking them to the Hawks Museum at Waverley in the remaining days of these school holidays. 

While there, you can also become a Friend of the Hawks Museum.  Any inquiries please ring Peter Haby on 03 9535 3075 or email hawksmuseum@hawthornfc.com.au.  

When at the Museum make sure you purchase your copy of Mud, Muscle and Blood: The Story of the 1957 Hawks the first Hawthorn team to contest a Finals Series.  There are only a handful of copies remaining.