James Hird’s bid to return to Essendon as coach may have been dubbed by industry insiders as the start of a potential redemption tour, but the unofficial process has been more than five years in the making.
It was in 2019 when Hird was invited to the 40th birthday lunch of then club chief executive and good friend, Xavier Campbell, at the Botanical Hotel in South Yarra that the estranged star took his first steps back into the Bombers’ fold.
Tim and Jobe Watson; former club chairman Paul Little, a Hird backer; AFL commissioner Robin Bishop, a former Macquarie Capital boss; and another former club chairman, David Evans, were among those present.
It wasn’t an easy acceptance for Hird, for it was the first time he and Evans had been in the same room since their two decades-long friendship was frayed by the stress of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority’s investigation into the club’s supplements program, according to one person who attended.
Hird’s re-engagement with the club continued through the 2020 pandemic when football shut down. He and former skipper Jobe Watson texted Campbell to ask if there was any way the pair could help the club.
After workshopping several ideas, the three men settled on the podcast, Working Through It.
The next significant move came two years later when Hird was invited to the club’s 150th celebrations, joining club greats on the field pre-game. Hird, according to one source with knowledge of the situation who wished to remain anonymous, had to weigh up whether to attend his first official AFL commitment with the club in seven years. He debated what reception he might receive from Bombers’ faithful before accepting.
The response he received from supporters as he emerged from the tunnel onto the MCG was akin to a healing moment, reinforcing to the dual premiership player that there was still love for him among the Essendon faithful, despite the bitter aftertaste of the injecting program.
He joined an inner circle of Bombers legends – including Matthew Lloyd, Kevin Sheedy, Tim Watson and Dustin Fletcher – who linked arms with the playing group before the bounce. He also took part in a club documentary.
Hird has been around Essendon figures and players in the ensuing years, and been in the dressing room post-match.
“His love of the club has always been clear. It’s just now he has another chance to coach, which looks to be in his blood,” one club coterie member, wishing to speak anonymously, said.
Hird has rebuilt his life since it was almost taken from him in 2017 through a severe mental health crisis. He subsequently spent five weeks in a psychiatric facility, dealing with the deep clinical depression he said was brought on by “years of continual stress”.
That stress, of course, was linked to the tumult of the Bombers’ drugs saga, which all but blew up the club and Hird’s coaching career, and led to 34 players being suspended for a year.
“Just remember all of that, and see where he is today. That’s a redemption story,” the same club coterie member, who has spoken with Hird at club functions, said.
Should Essendon interview Hird, it does not come without risk. While club great Tim Watson says, “There is a large group of people out there that want James Hird to be coach”, there are also many Essendon fans who have made it clear on talkback radio that they want to move on from the misery of the past. Some won’t forgive his part in the drugs saga, and its toll on the Essendon 34; others feel he has been out of an AFL coaching environment for too long.
It’s the same risk Eddie McGuire and his team at JAMTV assessed when they approached Hird early last year about a return to mainstream media.
“Of course [there was risk]. We did everything Essendon will be thinking about if he goes through the process to do this job, except we have everyone, and our business is relying on people wanting to watch the people on the screen,” said the former Collingwood president and friend of Hird.
He knew Hird was articulate and had an excellent football mind, but would the wider football world listen to him after the tumult of the injection saga, and more than a decade removed from being a senior coach?
“We weren’t doing it as a charity case. We thought about it long and hard. We spoke to Hirdy, and we felt he was back; the total package of James Hird,” McGuire said.
Hird’s return to the media on Footy Classified on Nine, the owner of this masthead, has given him a platform, which he used to launch his interest in the Essendon coaching job.
That Hird accepted a share of the blame for the drugs saga while declaring his intention to run for the role reinforced, to those who know Hird, that he is more empathetic than when he departed the club in 2015.
It took Hird – a father of four and still married at the time to wife Tania – three years after the ’17 incident to open up publicly about the toll his initial doomed coaching stint, and the immediate aftermath, took on him.
In a revealing podcast with friend and Hawthorn great Shane Crawford, Hird – a man for so long treated as a footballing god – recalled feeling “helpless”.
“I look back to times in 2016 and times in 2015, when I felt like I am at the bottom of a well, a 30-foot well, it’s dark, and every time I try and climb out of that well, another brick just hits you on the head, and people are just throwing bricks at your head, or you’re throwing them at your own head,” Hird said.
“To be helpless like that, and lying in bed, and not being able to move, hearing your kids playing outside, but still not being able to move, to where I am now, it’s just light years away.
“The sense of happiness and joy you get from understanding how good you feel now, from where you felt so poorly, is a really nice feeling.”
Crawford said Hird’s anguish was “extremely confronting”.
“It was jaw-dropping to have someone express how they felt, and then being able to get himself out the other side of it, which takes great courage and fight to get yourself up and going and back into life,” Crawford, the 1999 Brownlow medallist and 2008 premiership player, said this week.
“That’s why when I hear people say now that Essendon, if they pick James Hird, they will have too much pressure and attention, my theory to all of that is, that’s nothing to what he has been through. He was at the bottom, and he has clawed his way up.
“He has the passion and drive and hunger and desire. I am like, ‘Wow’, When people are in that mindset you know the only way is up, not only with them but whatever they get involved in.”
The business world
Since regaining control of his life, Hird has forged a successful path in business, using the global executive MBA he gained while studying at the exclusive INSEAD business school in 2014, while suspended by the AFL, to full effect.
He was a co-owner of Cacao Hunters Australia, a premium business that imports and markets chocolate from Colombia. He has also been an investor, board member and ambassador for the Australian sports and footwear brand Concave, helping the brand expand into Asia. There have also been tech and data forays.
He remains involved in global marketing group Gemba, which he co-founded in 2004, but it’s in financial markets where he’s made a major splash.
In a similar mould to fellow AFL great Chris Judd, Hird founded and is the managing director of Euree Asset management, which this masthead has confirmed he is in the process of selling.
The company specialises in multi-asset investments across equities, fixed interest, property and alternative assets. His level of knowledge and detail, said one source who wished to remain anonymous to speak freely, was “high-grade”, with Hird following the world markets from the early hours of the morning.
He has also financially backed Super Trustees Australia and been a board member and group chief operating officer for New York-based alternative asset technology platform Qualis Holdings, which he sold.
“The disciplines of business, having worked in New York City with people that have never heard of Australian rules football, far less than James Hird, means he knows how to present himself and sell,” McGuire said.
“When you are a football star in Melbourne, you generally don’t need to do [the sell]. You are in the door – it’s a matter of whether you can stay in, generally.
“He understands business. I laugh a bit when people say he hasn’t been in a coaching box. He has been in New York City, he has been at the Sorbonne in France, he has done any number of business courses, personal-development courses, all the things that everyone in football should do but don’t because they stay in football.”
It’s through his business links that Hird, as reported by this masthead, wants the Bombers to invest more in artificial intelligence to help deliver data players and coaches need.
Hird’s strong work ethic is also clear to those who work with him in the media. He picks up trends – he was arguably the first pundit to detail why the Brisbane Lions’ midfield was vulnerable, and the first to highlight Sydney’s forward-handball game that has them a premiership contender.
His bold declaration on national television that he wanted to replace the axed Brad Scott surprised even McGuire with its passion and assertiveness.
The football brain
Hird returned to football in a stint as an assistant coach at GWS in 2022 when good friend and former teammate Mark McVeigh was caretaker coach. Giants skipper Toby Greene, who grew up idolising Hird, has used Richmond great Trent Cotchin and Hird for advice on football and business, as have other players across the league.
In terms of tactics, those close to Hird, now director of coaching at VFL club Port Melbourne, say he is big on fundamentals – winning the contest, outnumbering, winning territory and retaining the ball in the forward half, allowing a defence to set up behind the ball.
They say he believes player development is one of the keys to success, an area the Bombers have struggled in.
However, there are Essendon fans, judging by their responses on talkback radio, who would prefer Swans premiership coach John Longmire or former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley to coach their club.
Family
In January last year, Hird and wife Tania called it quits after 27 years of marriage. The pair remain on good terms.
Tania, a former lawyer and founder of Hairflair Aus and Tania Hird Designs, was a beacon of strength for Hird during the supplements scandal.
Hird’s father Allan, who played four games for the Bombers in 1966-67, and staunchly defended his son through the scandal, did not want to elaborate on his son and his recovery, but said James had the best interests of Essendon at heart.
What next?
Hird is awaiting a call from the Bombers, once they settle on a coaching subcommittee and terms of reference for their new coach. He was contacted for comment by this masthead.
This masthead can confirm he has a team of assistants, not only former Essendon players, in mind he will ask to join him, should that opportunity arise. This will likely include caretaker coach and good friend Dean Solomon.
McGuire, who hired Mick Malthouse as coach when rebuilding Collingwood and later oversaw the transition to Nathan Buckley, is unashamedly pro-Hird.
“I can’t help but feel if there ever was a time for James Hird to come back to be the coach of the club, not just the team, and bring all the positive powers – yes, you have to forgive and look over the negative issues there, but that’s 13 years ago – then it’s now,” McGuire said.
Crawford said Hird had learnt from being too trusting of his staff, and would preach greater loyalty.
“He will have the most powerful team that is united from a coaching point of view,” Crawford said.
Crawford knows all about fairytale finishes, the last of his 305 senior games being the winning 2008 grand final. He wants Hird to also enjoy a tantalising script.
“James Hird is a doer, he doesn’t want to blend in with everyone else. He has set up hedge funds overseas, he is an innovator. He doesn’t have to go and coach again … but that is what his heart is in,” Crawford said.
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