Welcome to our modern day cult hero
Jai Newcombe joins an elite list of brown and gold cult heroes who came before him
It’s official. Jai Newcombe is here to stay - and not just as an incredible story, astute mid-season draft pick-up and elite midfielder. As the latest in the line of cult heroes that have graced the brown and gold.
He’s just 25 games into his AFL career and through 18 matches in 2022 averages 22 disposals, five tackles and four clearances per game - making him arguably our best midfielder and above average in many stats categories this season.
And he’s just 20 years of age.
Duke, Newc, Nuke, Jai, Duke Nukem, The Duke, King Kong of Poowong - whatever you call him, Hawks supporters (and indeed many who are not) have taken a particular fancy to this absolute unit.
So much so that he has rapidly gained ‘cult-hero’ status among the fanbase.
It made us sit back and ponder… who are some of the others that rose to cult-status fame at the club, and given the celebration of Jai, why not have a look and revisit their contributions?
Jack Fitzpatrick
Games: 4 (26 career)
Listed: 2016 - 2017
Top-four spots guaranteed: 1
Played four games of footy for the club - round 23 in 2016, the Qualifying and Semi Final losses in 2016 and round eight in 2017.
But it is his contribution in his club debut against the Pies in round 23 of 2016 that will go down in history as his single greatest footballing moment.
Trailing the 12th placed Pies by a goal with two and a half minutes to play, and needing a draw to cement a top-four spot and guaranteed double chance, Fitzy launched a drop punt on the run from (1)60 metres out to tie the game.
We went on to win it by a point, and Jack has become a Twitter sensation - to the point where his account was suspended for tweeting the goal too often!
Ryan Schoenmakers
Games: 121
Listed: 2009 - 2019
Premierships: 2015
Drafted at pick 16 overall in the 2008 National Draft, Shoey very much had a love/hate relationship with Hawk fans.
He was much maligned throughout his career and was often seen to have underperformed given his promise and clear abundance of talent.
Spent 11 years on our list and was a standout throughout 2012 playing 25 games for the season including the Grand Final loss to Sydney - cementing his place in the team.
In round four 2013 Shoey succumbed to a groin injury which ended his season prematurely and in 2014 he came back in round seven - playing every home and away game for the rest of the season before being left out of the finals series all together.
In 2015 he played an important part throughout the finals series culminating in a premiership medallion - and was lauded as one of the good news stories of the campaign.
Only played 26 more games over the next three seasons - but will always have a premiership reunion to attend.
Matt Spangher
Games: 24 (56 career)
Listed: 2013 - 2016
Premierships: 2014
What a story. After being at West Coast where he watched his teammates win the 2006 flag and spending time at Sydney where his club took home the 2012 premiership, Spangher was traded to the Hawks for pick 66 in the 2012 AFL Draft.
In 2013 Spangher played four matches for the season - rounds eight, 20 and 23 before being part of the winning Qualifying final against the Swans but being dropped for the next two games and watching a third flag from the sidelines.
In 2014 his luck changed - playing in rounds three and four before being dropped and recalled for the round 12 game against West Coast where he had 22 touches and 10 marks.
He played most of the rest of the season including the stirring Grand Final win against his former teammates at Sydney and was without question one of the fan heroes of the campaign.
Played five more matches over the next two seasons, but his name was already inscribed into Hawthorn folklore.
Stuart Dew
Games: 26 (206 career)
Listed: 2008 - 2009
Premierships: 2008 (2004 with Port)
The unlikely Bulky Hero.
Having retired from footy in 2006 and spending the year away from the game in 2007, Dew was coaxed into coming out of retirement by former Port Adelaide assistant coach - and now Hawks senior coach, Alastair Clarkson.
After being convinced to nominate for the draft and then heading to Kokoda with the Hawks as part of a 25kg weight loss campaign heading into the 2008 season, Dew ticked all the boxes set out in front of him.
He played the first two games of 2008 before injuring his hamstring, and the chorus of naysayers had a field day linking rapid weight loss to soft tissue injuries.
Dew managed 10 more home and away games for the season before playing in all the finals, including the greatest five minute patch of footy that has EVER been seen from one individual in the history of AFL Grand Finals.
Even better is the folklore story from before the game - where he sent a photo of his 2004 premiership medallion to Buddy, Hodgey, Mitch, Lewis and co - begging for them to give the medallion a brother.
Played 11 of the first 12 home and away games in 2009 before soft tissue injuries caught up with him and he was forced into a second retirement.
John Barker
Games: 113 (168 career)
Listed: 1998 - 2006
Perhaps the top seed of all the Hawthorn cult heroes that ever there was.
And the only one to have his own fan chant made especially for him:
🎶 Johnny Barker walks on water, tra la la la la, la la la la. 🎶
Pair this with the John Barker banner that used to be held up in the members section of Waverley and the MCG, and you have all the makings of hero status.
Persistent injuries meant that Barker only managed 113 games at the Hawks in nine years at the club - with seasons 2000 and 2001 the clear highlights accounting for 45 games and 80 goals.
His two final quarter goals while completely concussed in the 2001 Semi Final win in Adelaide against Port remains a legendary tale at the club and a peak fan favourite moment.
Speaking to the Golden Years Podcast in 2020 about his cult status, Barker reflected:
“I recognise it in the aftermath, and it’s all the good stuff about my career but also some of the stuff I don’t look on as fondly, which is my next part of my career which wasn’t a great period of time given the issues with my body.
“But that Johnny Barker walks on water song, the only version I used to hear was Campbell Brown singing: ‘Johnny Barker walks on water, tears a hamstring every quarter’, so that’s the version I got to listen to for the next four or five years.
“It flattened me out a bit that I couldn’t sustain that and had some issues with the body and couldn’t quite get back to the same level of performance which is what everyone wanted.”
Josh Thurgood
Games: 13
Listed: 2005 - 2007
Managed just 13 games in his three years on Hawthorn’s list, and in those recorded more than five marks on two occasions, and over ten touches just four times.
But show us another footballer who is as remembered for a less than average 13 game or less footy career, and we’ll go hee.
So what was it about him? Silly question - we all know answer to this one.
It wasn’t that he was a red-head fighting the good battle for red-heads all over Australia. It’s that his har was actually a barrel of red-headed dreadlocks - the kind that Bob Marley would have been proud of.
Tried his hardest to take the game on off the half-back flank and had a heart bigger than his 77kg frame suggested, but it wasn’t enough and he was delisted at the end of 2007.
Hoping that one day some of the locks end up in the Hawks Museum.
Robert Dipierdomenico
Games: 240
Listed: 1975 - 1991
Premierships: 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989
Brownlow Medal: 1986
Dipper was not just a cult hero of the Hawthorn Football Club, but an iconic figure in the AFL through the 1980’s.
The son of Italian immigrants who had a stutter growing up, Dipper made his name playing a tough, uncompromising brand of football that helped him find his place in the world.
But it was a whole host of exploits playing the game on the field that made his such an iconic figure.
His trademark moustache, the broken ribs and punctured lung in the 1989 Grand Final (and that headlock), the Brownlow medal in 1986 - one of the seasons that he did not get rubbed out (second highest suspended hawk of all time with 18 games suspended from nine charges) and his five day and four night premierships.
Or maybe it was his cameos in Billy Birmingham’s 12th Man series or post-career ads for Dimmey’s and Forges - either way, he paved the way for our cult heroes that followed.
Jack Fitzpatrick aka "Big Cyril"
Also never forget the king of snipers Matthew Lloyd belting Josh Thurgood while wearing an arm guard for an injured wrist. One football true low lifes.