Legendary Hawthorn Football Club coach John Kennedy pulled a 20-year-old Rob Aitken aside after training one night at Glenferrie Oval and told him if he played well in the reserves on the weekend he would be making his Victorian Football League debut the following weekend.
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The acknowledgement had come after Aitken had been vice-captain of the club’s premiership-winning Under-19 team of 1972 (its only Under-19 premiership in history) and a string of high-quality reserve-grade performances at the start of the 1973 season.
Mr Kennedy, as Aitken referred to him while speaking on stage at the Melbourne supporters’ luncheon on Friday, had just coached Hawthorn to the 1971 premiership and was a larger-than-life figure of the club.
Kennedy had won four club best and fairests as a player and coached the Hawks to their first VFL premiership in 1961 (despite the team having been in the VFL since 1925). In the next 30 years the club won another eight premierships.
Aitken was the opening speaker with master of ceremonies Brad McEwan, fittingly the former club president and coach is the key figure in organising the six-year-old luncheon.
For the record Aitken never got to make his VFL debut. In the second quarter of that match with Geelong he fractured his ankle and was sidelined for the last six weeks of the season.
He still finished the 1973 season runner-up in the Hawthorn reserves’ best and fairest — to G. Ablett (Geoff).
That injury saw him have a late start to the 1974 season and struggle to make an impact with the Hawks.
He asked Hawthorn for a clearance to Rochester, fully intending to regain his confidence and form at the lower level and return to Hawthorn the following year.
In the meantime he met his wife Jeanne, opened Rochester’s first sports store and 48 years later is still living in the town.
McEwan’s introduction of the former club president was accompanied by him posing the question “was there anyone who has come to our community that has given more than Rob Aitken to the club?’’
“People may forget what he has done because he is part of the furniture. He’s not only played at the elite level, but done just about everything at the club,” McEwan said.
“Those that receive the monthly email will understand.”
He said while the luncheon was a team effort, nobody drove it more than Rob Aitken.
“It’s been a big year for a lot of people in Rochester and the community spirit that the town has shown has been incredible,” he said.
“We are here for the Rochester football and netball supporters lunch, but it is more about people.”
McEwan said when he approached club legend David Williams to speak at the luncheon, he pointed the finger in Aitken’s direction.
He said it was fitting that Rob Aitken shared his story in front of a number of players attending the luncheon for the first time.
Aitken played his junior football at Burwood, winning five premierships at underage level before being recruited to Hawthorn in 1971 — the same year club legends Peter Hudson, Leigh Matthews, David Parkin, Peter Crimmins, Kelvin Moore and Don Scott had just played in a premiership team.
Aitken has remained connected to Hawthorn through the years and only last year, when a close friend was seriously ill, he organised close friend and 428-gamer Michael Tuck to travel to Rochester and visit the life-long supporter.
Rob was born at Pyramid Hill Bush Nursing Hospital and when he eventually arrived at Rochester in his early 20s played under McEwan’s great-uncle and Carlton legend Jim Clark.
In 1977, when assistant coach of the Tigers, he broke his fibula and tibula and dislocated his ankle.
After 18 weeks in plaster he coached Bamawm for the next couple of years, but answered the SOS of Rochester and coached there in 1982-83, when the club was having some financial problems.
Later, amid talk of leaving the GVL and joining the Kyabram league, he was asked to take on the presidency.
“I was only 33 at the club and we had two young boys at the time,” he said.
“My wife said to me ‘we have two boys, they have cousins and they all have mates. Where do you want them to play their footy?,’ so I agreed to take on the job.”
Aitken spent the next 12 months recruiting committee members and players, then stood for president.
“We had a meeting at the end of 1986 and after we had just beaten Tongala to move off the bottom of the ladder,” he said.
“Geoff Rosenow (who was from Echuca and had been a legendary Geelong hard man of the 1960s) was coach at that time.”
Aitken was president for a nine-year period when the team played in five grand finals and, in one season, the Tigers had five teams in grand finals.
His son, Heath, was a member of the 1999 premiership as a 16-year-old.
Heath, and older brother Brandon, had never heard a lot about their father’s football pedigree.
“I knew the Hawthorn Under-19 premiership story, but not a lot else,” Heath said.
“I’d heard parts from other people, but today was an eye opener.”
Heath Aitken played more than 200 games for the Tigers, despite moving to Melbourne as an 18 year old.
He travelled back regularly to play at the same club where his father was a legend and his city planner brother was a popular reserves player, and captain.
Brandon Aitken is also a life member of the club, committee member and served on the GVFL board.
The secondary PE and health teacher played half that premiership season with the Bendigo Pioneers and also trained with North Melbourne, North Ballarat and Port Melbourne at VFL level, playing pre-season games with the latter two clubs.
He remembers missing the grand final the Bendigo Pioneers played in, in 2000 when he was injured, a team that included present coach Ash Watson, the Sellwood twins and St Kilda/North Melbourne star Nick de Santo.
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