Inside the ‘redemption campaign’ to reinstall James Hird

May 30, 2026 — 5:30am

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The plot to reinstall James Hird as coach of Essendon – or the “redemption campaign”, as club leaders called it – turned serious in March last year.

It began with a telephone message from former Bombers chairman Paul Little to David Barham, who held the job then, in the days following Essendon’s 10-goal loss to Adelaide in round two. Little wanted a meeting.

The timing was self-explanatory. Little, a key Hird supporter, was dismayed on the eve of the 2025 season when the club announced it had extended coach Brad Scott’s deal until the end of 2027.

Successive season-opening losses followed the contract announcement and the phone call took place after the Bombers’ MCG thrashing by the Crows on March 22.

Little would not say why he wanted to meet, despite several requests from Barham, and the meeting never took place. But, two months later, the former chairman and one-time seven-figure Essendon benefactor told this column that he would not rule out returning to the board if “the time was right.”

At the time, Little refused to publicly address whether he wanted Hird to return as the club’s senior coach, but he had communicated that view to several associates who would not be named given the private nature of those conversations. He had also held conversations with club directors during 2024 expressing his misgivings about Barham.

One director, who again would not be named for confidentiality reasons, said Little described Barham as a “cowboy”.

The public face of the “redemption campaign” – and it was not a term coined with affection or affirmation from the hierarchy during the difficult days of the past season-and-a-half – was the club’s legendary four-time premiership coach Kevin Sheedy.

Sheedy was a club director and Bombers ambassador who is no longer paid by the club, having moved to the AFL’s books. He controversially announced after Scott was appointed coach in late 2022 that he had voted for Hird – the losing candidate – and believed Hird should have returned to the club as coach. Incredibly, given his directorship was largely symbolic, he remained on the board for another two years while Scott coached.

Sheedy hit the airwaves again this week, endorsing Hird after Scott was sacked. Long-time club recruiter and list boss Adrian Dodoro, whose protracted departure after a two-decade reign at the end of 2024 was clouded in legal acrimony, has told Essendon friends he, too, supports Hird.

Ditto Danny Corcoran, whose role in the 2012 drug scandal saw him banned for six months and ultimately ended his time in the game. Corcoran told the Herald Sun earlier this year that Hird should coach Essendon again.

Until Hird publicly placed his hat in the coaching ring on Tuesday night, his interest in the role was less clear than that of his backers. After serving his own one-year ban for his role in the drugs scandal – which also saw Jobe Watson lose his Brownlow, and the Bombers fined $2 million, banned from the 2013........

© The Sydney Morning Herald