Hawthorn Football Club has honoured four long-serving members of the club, both past and present, with life membership at the Hawthorn Annual General Meeting held at the Hawthorn Town Hall.
Senior Coach Alastair Clarkson, Physiotherapist Andrew Lambart, former Director of High Performance Andrew Russell and former Head of Football Strategy & Innovation David Rath were all commended for their service to the Hawks.
Chief Executive Officer, Justin Reeves, said the honour was well deserved by all four men.
“These four individuals have given so much of themselves to the Hawthorn Football Club over the journey,” Reeves said.
“They all joined the Hawks at the end of 2004, at the beginning of Alastair’s tenure, and each has played a significant role in our history, all of them contributing a great deal to our four premierships in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
“Although David and Andrew Russell no longer work for the club, they will always be Hawthorn people, and we will be forever grateful for the impact they and their families made on the brown and gold.
“We are thrilled that we have the opportunity to acknowledge both Alastair and Andrew in this way while they are both still actively involved in helping the Hawks achieve its next premiership.”
Clarkson, heading into his fourteenth year at the helm, is the second-longest serving coach in the AFL’s current crop of coaches. He stands as the only coach to have won four AFL premierships, with only four coaches having won more in the history of the VFL/AFL.
Lambart, the Hawks’ head physiotherapist for the past 14 years, has been a trusted and revered member of the football department.
Russell joined Carlton Football Club at the end of the 2018 season, while Rath moved to the AFL in January to take up the role of coaching innovation and education manager.
