When the Hawks Museum approached the 1961 premiership players for  memorabilia for a planned exhibit paying tribute to the Club’s first premiership as part of the 5 Decades of Flags celebrations, Malcolm Hill offered a pair of his boots. 

The museum went on to discover that Malcolm Hill’s boots were quit significant in the history of boot manufacturing in Australia. They were prototype of the White Diamond boot that was to be later made famous by champion Hawthorn full forward Peter Hudson in the 1970s.

The shoe manufacturer White Diamond initially made baseball shoes in a small factory in Aspendale. Keen to enter the lucrative trade of football boots, they made a prototype football boot in 1956 and asked Malcolm Hill, then playing with Hawthorn’s Second 18 if he would trial their boots in a game. 

Hill found them to his liking went onto to wear them throughout his career with the Hawks including the wearing them in the 1961 premiership. 

White Diamond also had the agency for PUMA soccer boots and when PUMA realised how popular Australian Rules football was in Melbourne, they decided to make football boots themselves; PUMA bought out White Diamond.

Hawthorn has maintained a strong connection with PUMA ever since with Peter Crimmins working as the first sales representative followed by Peter Knights, with many of the Club’s supporters fondly remembering the famous gold boots worn in the late 1970s.