Emma Race: Do you love the Hawthorn Football Club or do you love just the men's team?' Hawks Insiders Live event - 2024

28 August 2024, Glenferrie Hotel, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia

The Hawks Insiders hosted af series of panels at a live event in August including an AFLW panel which featured Lucy Race, Julia Faragher and Hawthorn’s #1 ticket holder Emma Race.

As part of the AFLW panel Emma was asked about the significance of the 2024 season for the team and supporters. Her answer was proud and passionate and evoked rousing applause from the packed audience of predominantly male fans.

As the Hawthorn AFLW team storm up the ladder heading into the mid way point of the season, it presents a great opportunity to revisit Emma’s impassioned message to footy fans, that it is not too late to be early adopters of the women’s game.

I constantly see this beautiful community of Hawthorn supporters who truly are family, band together. We've been tested over times, not necessarily just on the field.

I'm a very competitive person and I see that there is an opportunity for an AFLW team to get the full support of their members in a way that hasn't really been taken up. You know, when we talk about AFLW, the Brisbane Lions have been completely dominant, a lot of the interstate clubs are incredibly dominant in the AFLW. Being a Victorian club and being one of the last to enter the competition has set us back a little bit. We've had some things that have made up the distance, but when we look at the comparison, the Brisbane Lions have been in five Grand Finals and won two of them. For Hawthorn this will be our third season in the competition yet we have about one and a half thousand more AFLW members than the Brisbane Lions.

This season, we've got an opportunity to gather our 86000 members and say, do you love the Hawthorn Football Club, or do you just love the men's team?

We've had so many panels up here celebrating Hawks people who died a very long time ago and our love for them and their commitment to the club. We are about history. We are about legacy. And we're all about loving the brown and gold, whether it's at Box Hill or whether it's at Hawthorn. The opportunity that we have in the present is to make a difference to the story of this club. To stick our flag in the soil and say to every person who loves Australian Rules Football, that this club is different because this club truly values every single person who wears the brown and gold.

We've got the opportunity to support our women's team with as much passion as we support our men's team along with our blind team, our wheelchair team. This season, that might look like getting a membership. It might look like going to your first game. It might just be logging on and watching online. The truth is this, the women's team will not succeed without our support. And the reason for that is because the AFL will hold growth of the AFLW until they see us wanting to support it.

The women only get eleven games in ten weeks to make their mark. So it's kind of like dog years really. Every game counts more than one of the men’s games. We've got to make our mark straight away, come out of the blocks flying and we have to win the first four games or we are probably not playing finals. In the same way that every game counts, every membership- it really counts. Every time you watch it, at the ground or on TV it really counts in the women's game. When you do that, more commercial partners come on board, because they see the numbers, they see the data. When that happens, more money comes into the game, more professionalism comes into game, because we can pay the players more. The people who play AFLW are literally leaving their blood sweat and tears out there and then they're also copping hate online in volumes and in hideous violent rhetoric which no one deserves. So, there's a way that we can actually make a difference.

I believe in this club. I always have.

You know, for 47 years of my life, I was a Hawthorn supporter with no W team. So what I guess I am saying is, if you had the pleasure of watching people who look like you play the game I would love you to throw your support now behind people who are playing the game who look like us.

Patrick Hill: 'This is a movement, a journey towards equality', launch Hawthorn Women's Football Team - 2018

1 May 2018, Hawthorn Football Club, Melbourne, Australia

View video of speech on hawks website.

I’d like to welcome you all to the Inaugural Hawthorn Women’s Football team. Over the course of the next hour or so, you will get to meet the young women who will make represent our club and I’ve got no doubt you will recognize the same qualities in them that I see every day. Strength, courage, humility, honesty and passion to name a few.

When discussing women’s football, you cannot talk about the game alone. This is a movement, a journey towards equality, a small step in righting the wrongs of the past and an awakening of a powerful entity that will change the way we view our sport forever.

When I took the women’s senior coaching role at Box Hill last year, I was merely taking a job, the next role in a 15 year career. What I found was so much more. Of the 1000’s of coaching jobs all over Australia, I believe I have one of the best and most important. It has become my passion, my inspiration and my joy.

Never before have I been more excited and enthused to get to training on a cold July night. The love and passion these players have for the game is infectious. Their commitment to each other, their willingness to learn and develop and the way in which they tackle each road block standing between them and success, leaves me with nothing but admiration. Put simply, they inspire me each and every day to be a better man.

None of this would have been possible without the bravery and the generosity of the Box Hill Football Club who, along with Geelong, became the first VFL clubs to recognise the importance of inclusion and benefits of involving women at all levels of a football program.

Working closely with senior figures at Hawthorn, the Box Hill Hawks transformed the VFL for ever and made having a women’s program the envy of all other clubs.

This year we fall solely under the Hawthorn banner and have integrated our women’s program into every part of our business, on and off the field. We have developed a program that has surpassed many of the clubs that field an AFLW team and will continue to build on that, each and every year.

We are three teams, one club, and we will use every resource at our club to develop our players, coaches and support staff to be better on the field, in the coach’s box, on the sidelines or in life in general.

As a team we are hell bent in achieving success as a group. We have recruited strongly and strategically. The girls have worked extremely hard since November, and have completed more sessions than any other VFL club in preparation for 2018.

We put no limits on what we can achieve this year and have the finals firmly in our sights, a tough ask with only 4 teams out of 13 getting to compete in September. But we believe our best is good enough and will fight with everything we have to honour this great club.

We have beefed up our coaching department, our football admin, our strength and conditions and welfare departments. We have invested in technology to give the girls the very best our industry has to offer. No stone has been left unturned in ensuring we are successful in the years to come.

It is very important however, that while we chase on field success, we never lose sight of why women’s football matters. We must never lose sight of WHY we do this. While our ladies will be firmly focused on achieving success together, the impact they have in the community cannot be measured in wins and losses.

Our players are acutely aware of why they play this game and who they are playing it for. It is for every young girl in the Eastern suburbs with a dream. It is for every young Hawthorn supporter that has been told they can’t fulfil their passion in life because of their gender. It is for every young woman that needs help find a way forward, to find resilience from within and it is for every woman that has been neglected, mistreated or marginalised and needs the type of support only a good sporting club offers.

It is important that we continue to offer pathways for aspiring female talent in footy operations, in coaching, strength and conditioning. It is important that young men see these women being successful in these positions and influencing football in the years to come.

It is important for our community to see these strong, powerful, independent, career minded women as the role models they are. That they inspire other women to be the best they can be without fear of being labelled.

It is important that the Hawthorn Football Club continues to be a leader in this space. That we acknowledge WHY we are on this journey, that what we are doing matters, and that we continue to strive for equality, diversity and inclusion above all else.

Tonight ladies, you will receive your first Hawthorn jumper. It is a privilege and an honour to put this jumper on. And with that jumper comes a number, rich in history and worn by some of the games greats.

From Matthews to Mew, Brereton to Buckanara, Crimmins to Crawford, from Hudson to Hodge, each number comes with a story, most with a premiership and all with the blood, sweat and tears of the past. Tonight you will become custodians of that number, recipients of the jumper and the newest members of the family that is Hawthorn.

Remember always, that each and every day, we must earn the right to be part of this great club.

I thank you all for being here tonight to launch season 2018 and looking forward to getting to know you more as the year unfolds. A special thank you to our corporate partners who have displayed the courage to invest in women’s footy, you truly are making a difference to your community and should be applauded for it.

Lastly, I want to thank the parents, partners and friends. Without you in our lives, and the support you offer, this venture would be pointless. Regardless of how old be get, or how independent we think we are, we all in some way or another are just trying to make mum and dad proud. Hopefully we achieve that this year.

Thank you for your support and go Hawks!!

Emma Race: 'AFLW is giving us something to hold on to', The Outer Sanctum editorial - 2018

21 February 2018, ABC, Melbourne, Australia

The audio of her editorial below can be heard at 29.30 on 'Rainbows and Twitter Storms' ep of Outer Sanctum podcast

A word to those offended by the skills and scores in AFLW

Since the opening night of AFLW this year it's been impossible to ignore the chatter about the skills, and the goals. It just continues. That their skills are bad, that there's not enough goals. I’ve even read comments about how some people are confronted by the mere fact AFLW is on TV.

I don't know if you read it, but a former great and current octogenarian Neil Roberts was asked his thoughts on AFLW, and he added to the negative chat, unsurprisingly.

Because he was a proud former great who played when the patriarchy went completely unchecked, he was asked what he thinks of women playing football, and you can read his response. It doesn't really bare repeating. 

But I wish he'd been asked what he thinks of the recent charges against Shannon Grant.

Because we hear a lot on twitter and from journos about the low scores and the bad skills.

But for fans of men's AFL, for women like me, for us in this room who love the code ...

We have been confronted by the game.

And by worse things than low scoring matches and imperfect skills. 

We have been asked to accept and believe in the redemption of Wayne Carey, as he hosts White Ribbon Round.

We were confronted with the Steven Milne trial.

If you've read Anna Krien's book Night Games, you'd have been confronted with allegations of rape, abuse and power.

So today Shannon Grant is back in court facing up to 18 offences, including assault, and we have been horrified by the violence perpetrated by Justin Murphy against his former partner.

In July 2016 we heard the graphic details of Nick Stevens assault on his then girlfriend.

And that story continues.

I have heard a prominent AFLW player admit she fell out of love with the game and stopped playing because she didn’t know how to process the St Kilda School Girl story ... while she was a member and fan of that club.

Just last year my sister and I slept out at the G to make sure we had a seat to cheer for the Tigers as they won the Grand Final … only to be confronted by Nathan Broad’s text message the following day. 

For decades, we female fans of footy, have supported the men’s game.

We have paid our memberships and bought the merchandise.

But we have also been asked by our friends and strangers, to justify the behavior of the players, the stance of the clubs and the morality of the code that we love.

I believe in second chances and I believe in redemption, and I have afforded all those “former greats” the benefits of a fair hearing.

I continue to pay my membership and I continue to love my team and I love this game …

But I don’t know how to reconcile the racism and the sexism and the misogyny around the game.

And I can no longer defend it.

On twitter I was recently told it was a “cop out” to cite the positive social ripples the AFLW has created in defense of the scrappy opening night game.

And this has stayed with me.

Because what I can't do is split the joy AFLW gives me into on-field and off-field experiences.

Because the AFLW gives us something to hold on to, to keep us invested in the code. It's a safe place for us to celebrate our love of the game.  

So, I can easily defend what lack of skills there may be. And defending the numbers on the scoreboard? That is so easy.

Because it doesn’t hurt my sisters or their kids, the code or the community.

Please subscribe to the Outer Sanctum podcast here. You can hear Emma and team on ABC Local radio, 11am every Saturday during AFLW season.

Shona MacInnes: VAFA Womens Awards Night - 2017

14 August 2017, Melbourne, Australia

Wow! Look at all you beautiful people! I hardly recognise some of you without your footy jumpers & braids.

Thank you everyone for coming to another historic event for the Amateurs.

Speaking of history, we like celebrating historical milestones. This is the 125th year of men playing footy in the Victorian Amateur Football Association & it’s year number 1 for women.

I want you to cast your minds forward to 2067. It will be the 175th year of the VAFA and, more significantly, the 50th year of women playing footy in the Amateurs.

I’m sure they will have a gala event, even bigger & better than this, and someone will tell the story of when this all began. There won’t be a microphone like this but there will be an old screen like that because they will show snippets of the very first game of women’s footy played in the amateurs on Friday April 7th, 2017, between Hampton Rovers and Ormond.

It will seem like so long ago.

The audience will find the grainy old two Dimensional images slightly amusing. Someone will point out Kate MacQueen running around for Ormond. They will all know her because she had been a famous AFL player.

They will marvel at how we used to drive our own cars to the footy, and that there was this round thing called a steering wheel and we used to go like this and use pedals to make the car go where we wanted it to. They will find it hard to believe that it took an hour to get from Mentone to Marcellin.

And they will be intrigued by how we had things called phones & how we looked at them constantly. And these phones had screens and we used to use our fingers to do something called typing which was touching letters on the screen to writemessages. And we couldn’t be with-out them or else we’d get lost.

On this night in the future they may chuckle at our primitive technology, our phones and our segregated toilets but what they won’t giggle at –  is us.

They will look back on us with great respect and fondness, as we look back on the good people in history who were adventurous & progressive & who changed things for the better. They will be grateful to the men & women of the VAFA for starting this competition and for the sound foundations we put in place for them.

They will talk about a Board who made the most courageous decision in the 125 year history of the amateurs and, once made, unreservedly and without question supported this venture.

They will mention the small band of staff who, despite already running a competition with 10,000 players, took on the extra work load with enthusiasm and diligence. They will be grateful for the type of competition we ran and how we welcomed and included everyone.

They will listen in disbelief that 2017 was the first year a female umpire had officiated at an AFL match because by then umpiring will be a gender-neutral occupation.

They will thank the progressive & courageous Presidents & Committees of the foundation clubs who had the foresight & energy to see that women’s footy was the way forward.

They will talk about the coaches, who were mainly men in the beginning, who championed our women’s game and without hesitation shared their experience & knowledge.  

But above all they will applaud the brave young women who joined up to play, many of whom had never played before.  And how, at the start of the season, they turned up to training, awkward & unsure, but who listened and learned and worked hard to mould the competition into what it would become in the future.

They will note those women who went on to play AFL football, become famous coaches & administrators of the game and leaders in all fields in the community as a result of this competition. They may even point out the person who went on to become the first female to run the AFL. They will mention how this competition changed the lives of many of those girls and bettered the community as a whole.

Now, think of this:  Some of you players here tonight will be at this function in 2067, you will be in your 70’s and you will be guests of the VAFA and revered as pioneers and legends of the competition.

So: In 50 year’s time remember this night, and this year, and what all of us here have collectively achieved. Look back on it with great pride and truly appreciate what you were part of.

And as voices from the future we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.