In May this year the football world paid tribute to Bob Hammond, who sadly passed away at the age of 78.

Hammond was a man who did so much for so many during a lifetime in football. And it was on this day 36 years ago, 7 July 1984, that Hammond took the reins as the Sydney Swans coach.

Among those who will cherish their connection to Hammond as much as any are two players who debuted six days apart in the 1984 season.

Together they played 223 AFL games and kicked 248 goals and scored 11,587 first-class runs.

Yes, the chief beneficiaries of the eight-game Swans coaching stint of the AFL Hall of Famer, were Australian football and Australian cricket.

It’s all part of a complicated story in which, for the only time in club history, the Swans had three different coaches in three games when Hammond was flown in from South Australia to coach the club in the last eight games of the 1984 season.

It was a tough season, which began with Ricky Quade as coach and Barry Round as captain. It ended with Hammond as coach and Mark Browning as captain, after Tony Franklin had filled the coaching hot seat in Round 14.

Hammond, a 234-game dual SANFL premiership player with North Adelaide and a dual SANFL premiership coach with Norwood, who was later to serve on the AFL Commission from 2001-11, was parachuted into the coaching job in extraordinary circumstances.

He’d had no previous involvement with the club and didn’t even know the players.

The Hammond SOS went out after Quade, a 164-game Swans captain and club champion who had been coach since 1982, was admitted to hospital with a severe bleeding ulcer after Round 13.

Franklin, only 33 at the time, sat in as coach in a 31-point Round 14 loss to Collingwood at the SCG, in which 21-year-old wingman David Murphy made his AFL debut. The match also saw unheralded Collingwood forward Jim McAllester, at his third club in four years and in his 34^th (and third-last) game, kick a career-best seven goals.

The Swans played that day without inspirational captain Barry Round who, in a tough initiation for Franklin, was dropped and replaced as skipper by Browning, a 27-year-old 179-game veteran. 

The debutants: Barry Mitchell and Jamie Siddons

Hammond took over in Round 15 when Murphy, player #1129 on the all-time Swans player list and later to win selection in the club’s Team of the Century, played his second game.

Players #1130 and #1131, who debuted in Hammond’s second and third games in charge, were Barry Mitchell and Jamie Siddons.

Together they went on to build a huge legacy, albeit in different sports.

Mitchell was just 18 when he had 17 possessions and kicked two goals in his first game as the Swans beat Footscray by 26 points at the SCG on Sunday, July 15. It was a round split over two weekends.

He went on to play 221 games and kick 247 goals with Sydney, Carlton and Collingwood, winning the Bob Skilton Medal as Swans Club Champion and All-Australian selection in 1991.

Siddons was 20 when he had three marks and eight disposals in his first game – a 63-point loss to Richmond at the MCG on Saturday, July 28.

Recruited by the Swans for the 1984 season from suburban Robinvale in Melbourne, Siddons wore the #50 guernsey after it had been worn earlier in the season by Gary Frangalas.

But a mere fortnight after Hammond had endorsed Mitchell as a star in the making, he pulled the shutters on the would-be AFL career of Siddons. He left him out of the side the following week and he was never to play again at the elite level.

It was the beginning of Siddons’ remarkable trek down an altogether different sporting path.

Three months after his AFL exit Siddons made his first-class cricket debut for Victoria, making 35 against a touring West Indian side before falling to the legendary Courtney Walsh.

Still only 20, he was up and going on arguably the greatest Australian cricket career not to be rewarded with Test selection.

Quickly a fixture in the Victorian side, Siddons shared his international one-day debut with wicket-keeper Ian Healy against Pakistan in Lahore in October 1998.

Batting at No.6 behind David Boon, Geoff Marsh, captain Allan Border and Mike Veletta, and ahead of Steve Waugh, Peter Taylor, Craig McDermott, Healy, Tony Dodemaide and Tim May.

Healy was player #102 among Australian one-day representatives and Siddons #103. Following him were Merv Hughes at #104 and Mark Waugh at #105.

Siddons made 32 runs off 37 balls, with three boundaries, in a 50-over game in which both sides scored 229 and Pakistan were declared the winners because they had lost one less wicket. Healy was run out for one and did not take a catch.

Yet Siddons never played for Australia again, despite a phenomenal record for Victoria and later South Australia.

Hammond’s run as Swans coach

Having taken over a side that sat ninth on the 12-team ladder with a 6-8 win/loss record, he oversaw a record which went WWLLLLWL and saw the Swans finish 10^th at 9-13.

A dual premiership coach with Norwood in the SANFL and coach of the SA team that 12 months earlier had beaten Victoria at State of Origin level for the first time, Hammond matched wits against some of the best in the business.

In chronological order, his coaching opponents while in the Swans hot seat were Robert Walls, Mick Malthouse, Michael Patterson, Barry Cable, Tom Hafey, Allan Jeans, Kevin Sheedy and David Parkin. Only Patterson and Cable were not AFL premiership coaches.

Week by week Hammond left a mark on the club.

In his first game against Walls’ Fitzroy at Junction Oval the Swans doubled their score in the final quarter to win 14.12 (96) to 9.14 (68). Warwick Capper, in his 10^th game, kicked five goals and Browning had 25 possessions, and a 21-year-old Paul Roos, later to become a Sydney premiership coach, played his 50^th game for Fitzroy.

Also, veteran Swans ruckman Steve Taubert, an unlikely Brownlow Medal contender in his 11^th and last AFL season, headed the Brownlow votes from Browning (two) and Craig Holden (one).

With seven games to play, Melbourne pair Peter Moore (21) and Robert Flower (19) looked to have the medal between them, but 30-year-old Taubert, with 11 votes, was equal seventh and right in the mix for a podium finish.

It was Moore and Flower from Footscray’s Doug Hawkins (14), Richmond’s David Cloke (12), Hawthorn’s Gary Ayres (12), Carlton’s Wayne Johnston (12), Taubert (11) and Essendon’s Simon Madden (11). Completing the chasing pack were Hawthorn’s Michael Byrne (10), Essendon’s Roger Merrett and Paul Salmon (10) and Richmond’s Mark Lee (10).

In Round 16 against Maltouse’s Footscray at the SCG, Sydney won by 26 points. Capper kicked four, Holden had 30 possessions and Mitchell had 17 possessions and kicked two goals on debut. Tony Morwood, Paul Hawks and Holden took the votes.

In Round 17 the Hammond bubble burst as Siddons debuted against Patterson’s Richmond. The Swans were goalless in the second half and lost by 63 points at the MCG. Tony Morwood (2) and Mitchell (1) were the only Swans goal-kickers.

In Round 18 against Cable’s North Melbourne at the SCG the Swans led by three points at three-quarter time but lost by 15. Craig Braddy kicked six goals from eight kicks, Siddons played what was to be his last game, and Taubert, with 22 possessions and 39 hit-outs, picked up three Brownlow votes. With four games to play it was Moore (21) from Cloke (18), Taubert (14) and Hawkins (14).

Curiously, Frangalas was recalled for the clash with North and he and Siddons are officially listed by the AFL as having worn guernsey #50.

In Round 19 against Hafey’s Geelong at Kardinia Park the Swans lost by 21 after leading by 12 at quarter-time. Rod Carter played his 100^th Swans game and Braddy his 50^th as Capper kicked another six and Taubert picked up another Brownlow vote.

Moore, who had already won the 1979 Brownlow playing with Collingwood, picked up two more votes on the same weekend and was all but home as Taubert sat outright third on the leaderboard.

In Round 20 against Jeans’ Hawthorn, later to lose the grand final to Essendon, the Swans copped an 89-point hiding. Leigh Matthews kicked six goals and Ken Judge four as 18-year-old Queenslander Craig Potter became the third Swans debutant under Hammond and player #1132.

Hammond recalled Round for the Round 21 clash with Sheedy’s Essendon at the SCG and had perhaps his best coaching moment in red and white. They kicked 8.6 to 2.2 in the final quarter to beat the eventual premiers by 56 points as Capper and Tony Morwood kicked four goals and Round booted three.

Mitchell, with 25 possessions and three goals in his sixth game, earned his first three Brownlow votes. Murphy and Capper took the minor votes.

In his final game at the helm, Hammond faced a Parkin-coach Carlton side playing for third spot at Princes Park. The Swans, with Stevie Wright playing his 99^th game, led by four at halftime but despite six goals from Capper they lost by 36 points.

Taubert, who had played what turned out to be his last game in Round 21, had to be content with fourth place in the medal behind Moore (24), Cloke (21) and Flower (19). Still, his 15 votes represented 60 percent of his career total of 25 and the big ruckman, later to become a hugely popular figure at the Swans as a ruck coach, went out on a high note.

Round 22 also proved to be the 76^th and last game in Sydney colors for David Rhys-Jones, who moved to Carlton in 1985, and the 96th and last Swans game for Greg Smith who transferred to Collingwood.

Jack Lucas, too, had played his fifth and last game in Round 19 after Patrick Foy played his seventh and last in Round 18 and Stephen McBroom his sixth and last in Round 15. All went out under the Hammond watch. 

A lasting legacy

Hammond, 42, was offered the senior coaching role but declined for business reasons and returned to Adelaide to continue a glorious football career. He was the inaugural chairman of the Adelaide Crows from 1991-2000, overseeing the club’s 1997-98 premierships and was named in North Adelaide’s Team of the Century in 2001. He was inducted into the SA Football Hall of Fame in 2002, made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003, and in 2015, having completed his stint on the AFL Commission, was inducted to the AFL Hall of Fame.

A man genuinely liked and admired across all club boundaries, and always a friend to the Swans, Hammond died in Adelaide on Saturday 30 May surrounded by close family after a recent battle with Parkinson’s Disease. He will be fondly remembered by all he met along the journey.