No, Bombers. James Hird will not ‘heal’ my beloved Essendon. Appoint him and I’m done

OpinionRegular columnistJuly 31, 2026 — 11:00amLike a unicorn, the Staggers jeans were hanging in a Hobart vintage shop, next to original wash 501s. Straight, lilac, 26-inch waist. I hadn’t seen a pair in, forever. And bang, I was back in 1973, when my big sister wore Staggers with a Miller shirt and Treads.Back in the soft-top Datsun 180B, singing You’re So Vain with my brother and sisters, having Mum stop at the milk bar. I’d get back in the car feeling cool, pretend smoking my Big Boss cigar like I had a world to run.Good times: James Hird as Essendon coach in 2015 celebrates a win with his players.Getty ImagesWhat I wanted most in life was to be Sally Boyden on Young Talent Time. I was jealous of her pious yet knowing version of Sister Janet Mead’s The Lord’s Prayer and her long dress and her fringe and fame.Other distractions stopped me making a Sally voodoo doll. Victoria’s first Maccas went up next to our school. We’d fang around on Dragsters with plastic flowers from cereal boxes clicking in the wheels, make Shaker Maker models, spend pocket money at Brashs.The Staggers jeans had me back there. It felt ace and I may have had a short indulgent cry, missing my sister and missing being small and not having to think about anything other than being home for Rice a Riso at 6pm.Who doesn’t love a big fat dose of the blameless past to make them feel the future can be just as fabulous? And yet, I fear this exact throwing back to the past for security is about to bite something I hold dear while also having at the top of my list of Life Disappointments.The Essendon Football Club. Depressendon.With the hunt for our next coach in final stages amid Oppenheimer-style silence from the club, my freak-out is that Essendon will get sucked into looking backwards rather than forwards.It drives me nuts that we keep hearing Essendon need an “Essendon person” to “heal” the club. Give us a spell. It’s not a wellness centre. Nobody needs to wrap their arms around anyone. Nobody needs philosophy and sound baths.It’s a business. We need better bloody players. Let’s clone Sam Durham and play 18 of him. Most of all, we need a coach who isn’t a custodian of the club’s identity but someone willing to offend it.Essendon need more players like Sam Durham than people like Hird.Getty ImagesEssendon, I’ve been with you since the Maddens were a powerhouse ruck duo. Am still throwing membership money and loyalty at you, despite actively questioning if it’s OK to change teams.But if you get back in the hot tub time machine and give James Hird a third crack at coaching, the Bombers sticker is coming off the Golf and going in the bin.Club president Andrew Welsh, I hope you know this choice isn’t about appeasing some factions by polishing a legacy turd. It’s about what happens when people and the organisations they support become captive to their own mythology.There’s a point in every life when looking backwards stops being an act of remembrance and becomes an act of avoidance.I’ve done it a million times. Still do. Wish myself back with small kids and more energy and all that potential for fun. But that’s not how life works.Nostalgia is comforting, but it’s a terrible management philosophy. The past has enormous emotional power because it’s fixed. You can’t disappoint yourself by imagining yesterday. Tomorrow’s riskier.You don’t move forward by recreating favourite hits and memories or confusing them with a blueprint. Genuine reinvention begins with an act of letting go.Of course, Hird wants to rewrite his narrative so he’s a senior coach again. But to someone cursed to love Essendon, this is bigger than one man’s vanity project and personal redemption.It’s about a legacy business saying you know what, the unknown isn’t something to fear. It’s where the good stuff is.The shop assistant looked bemused at my teary Staggers moment. “Try them on,” she said. Nah. I would have needed to Cryovac my stomach.And remembering was enough. Some things fit better as memories. The trick is knowing when to leave the past on the hanger. Or at The Hangar. Over to you, Bombers. Don’t stuff this up.Kate Halfpenny is an author and the founder of Bad Mother Media.The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.More:Essendon BombersOpinionFor subscribersAFL 2026From our partners