IF, GOD forbid, fire were to engulf his residence in Watsonia, the first thing Grant Fraser would rescue is his ancient teddy bear. Grant Fraser is 47 years old. I know this because his daughter Courtney tells me.

"He calls it Big Ted. It's this grotty thing in a Hawthorn jumper," she explains in the half-embarrassed, half-proud way of a 15-year-old daughter. "It's disgusting."

I am sitting in the members' area at the MCG with Courtney and Grant, and Grant's father Don, waiting for the Hawthorn-St Kilda game to commence. I am learning a lot about the Fraser family.

Somehow, Courtney is a St Kilda fan. "It's not too late to change your club," Grant says to his daughter.

She screws her nose up. "Da-ad."

I am with the Frasers because Grant emailed me back in May to explain why it is Hawthorn's year. "Your little one, Theo," he explained, "was born in a premiership year. We are having another baby in July. We have painted the room yellow and the brown crepe paper is on order. She's going to be born in a premiership year, too."

Little Alexis Peck Scott Brereton Franklin Fraser (currently running third for affection behind Big Ted and Cyril "Junior" Rioli) was born on July 4. "Gotta be an omen," Grant says. "The Hawthorn song is to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Grant Fraser is big on omens. "I was born in a premiership year," he tells me. "The first Hawthorn premiership year."

He started barracking for Hawthorn when he was six years old. His family had just moved from Sydney and a kid at school persuaded him that Peter Crimmins could run the length of Glenferrie Oval in six seconds. Grant, now an intelligent and thoughtful professional gent, gives me no reason to doubt that he still believes it to be true.

Grant won a flag with the East Doncaster under-13 reserves. "I was a lumbering full-forward. I was a good mark, and a crap kick." ("Like 'Buddy'," Courtney says.)

Grant lived for Hawthorn. While studying law at Monash University, he expressed his deep love for the club by painting a pair of Adidas Romes gold and the stripes brown, and wearing them with a pair of brown and gold pants his mother made him. At the start of each grand final week from 1983 to 1989, he dyed his hair brown and gold.

It wasn't all joy, though. After the Hawks let one slip in '84, he sat in the shower for two hours, too distraught to move.

But mostly it was joy. He wrote songs for the crew on Lawyers, Guns and Money, the famous radio show he produced in the halcyon days of 3RRR.

He remembers everything (possibly because he tells the stories so often) and ponders the unfathomable ("How did Paul Abbot kick six in a grand final" ). The most unfathomable is why he should be so lucky to have chosen Hawthorn.

"I've also known the slings and arrows of the rebuilding phase," he admits.

"It hasn't been the same since '91. Which is why I stopped the traffic just near the Knox Hospital when Buddy kicked that goal to beat Adelaide last year. Tears streaming down my face with the club song blaring on the radio."

The members' is chockers. Lots of Hawthorn fans. Grant is half-confident, half-nervous. When the Hawks arrive in the race, he rises like a stallion. He becomes animated. Proud. I continue chatting, but only with Don because Grant is distracted.

"You're rocking, Dad," Courtney says, noticing her father moving forward and back in his seat. Grant doesn't hear. "He's rocking," she says directly to me. "He rocks when he's worried."

As the national anthem draws to a close, he comes to life with a booming: "Go Hawks."

And then the instructions begin. Any Hawk player who has worked himself free is named and pointed at. "Osborne," from Grant is actually an instruction to the bloke in possession to kick the footy to Osborne.

When Rioli kicks the first Hawthorn goal, he says: "I've started the Six For Cyril Campaign." He doesn't look at me when he says this, but I suspect it is directed at me.

He calls Shane Crawford Old Man, but affectionately. He has crushes on Junior, Buddy, Clint, Lewy, the skipper, and Sewelly, but is passionately in love with Luke Hodge and Dermie.

The Hawks take control. Goal after goal. After Chance Bateman's running launch halfway through the second quarter, hundreds leave the boozeless members' and head to one of the bars. They have no need to return. And they don't.

We stay in our seats. St Kilda is awful. The Hawks sparkle. During the final quarter, Grant reaches into his bag and pulls out a Hawthorn scarf. He offers it to Courtney. "Never too late," he says with the stupid grin of a bloke who could be in an American family sit-com. ("Yeah, right, Dad.")

After the siren, Grant is thrilled. He admits he already has the Romes and the pants laid out in his bedroom. "The dye goes in tomorrow night," he says. He heads home to Big Ted.

Footy needs people like Grant Fraser.

And the best thing is that footy has them.