OLD and new Hawthorn met in rapturous premiership celebration at Glenferrie Oval yesterday.

Old was the ground itself, from which the Hawks' first nine premierships were conceived, still their spiritual home, but now an art deco ghost town except on Saturday morning when it is home to a thriving Auskick clinic. Yesterday it was crammed with 20,000 fans; more were locked out and peered in from Linda Crescent. The jam delayed the arrival of the premiership players.

Old was MC Robert DiPierdomenico, the inimitable and indefatigable "Dipper", a five-time premiership player with the Hawks, but still above all a starry-eyed fan. "The biggest thing about yesterday is that they're living in their own light now," Dipper told the crowd. "They've been living in our shadow. It's been a big shadow, but they're in their own light now."

Old also was Shane Crawford, the last playing link with Hawthorn's golden era, a premiership player at last after 17 seasons and 304 previous games without even a grand final. "This is what I'm talking about," he had exclaimed from the MCG podium on Saturday night, brandishing his winner's medal. It became an instant catchcry, re-created on a banner yesterday, though Crawford in his reprise made a careful amendment: "This is what we're talking about."

From the past, there were the heroic fallen, raised again. Trent Croad was still in hospital yesterday, Campbell Brown stepping gingerly on a foot that had been broken throughout the finals series, Chance Bateman nursing stitches in his stubbly chin and Clinton Young a sore calf. Sympathy was passe. "Croady keeps telling us he's as good as Superman," new premiership teammate Stuart Dew said.

Here again were Dipper, Dermott Brereton, John Platten and Gary Ayres, all injured in the storied 1989 grand final, also won by Hawthorn, also against Geelong. On the corresponding day in 1989, Dipper also had woken up in hospital.

But this was a day and stage for new Hawthorn, perhaps nouveau Hawthorn. The presentation was new world. The players were in uniform, either guernseys or club polo shirts and caps, unprecedented at a premiership celebration. Most were clear-eyed and steady on their legs. Also unprecedented.

Coach Alistair Clarkson and captain Sam Mitchell made all the proper congratulations and thank-yous, but also used the moment to pitch for new members, as Mitchell had done on the victors' podium at the MCG the previous evening. Here was a new twist, premiership party as marketing opportunity (notwithstanding that these overwhelmingly were the converted).

Unusually, only Clarkson and Mitchell spoke, both briefly. The Hawks will not apologise; this is how they won the premiership, by micro-management of every man and moment. But Crawford, he of old Hawthorn ways, could and would not be rationed in this, his finest hour. Seizing the microphone from Dipper, he led the players in a further, unscheduled chorus of the club theme song.

The president, Jeff Kennett, is in the new style, more celebrity than former politician. Yesterday he donned his vaudevillian brown-and-gold striped jacket one last time, saying it would now be retired to the club museum. "We're building to a plan that fundamentally has no end," he declared. "The premiership is not the end, it's the beginning."

It is familiar premiership rhetoric, always well received. But Hawthorn is working to a plan. Clarkson was unproven when appointed four years ago, but prepared, driven and, above all, young, a man of his times. The team he built was prototypical, not meant truly to fly until next season at the earliest. If he and the Hawks were blinking a little more than usual at Glenferrie yesterday, it was not entirely because of the balmy sunshine.

New Hawthorn was most apparent in the masses. Many were wearing spanking new guernseys. Former president and saviour Ian Dicker said merchandising once brought in $60,000 a year, but had netted $100,000 last Friday alone.

The faces were new. So many were children's. But one belonged to an Indian woman who had arrived in Australia in 1986 and promptly joined the Hawks as a volunteer. With her was her 88-year-old mother, proudly in Hawthorn guernsey and scarf. "I hate cricket," she said.

Another belonged to Hung Tu, who was introduced to football when he arrived from Vietnam in 1989, aged four. His first favourite was Jason Dunstall, but now it is Crawford. With him was his brother, Huy, 14, and sister Huong, 7, all in Hawthorn guernseys, all for one and one for all, for life.

"I was really nervous at half-time," Hung said, "but when Stuey Dew kicked those two goals, I knew we had it in the bag."

Despite eight premierships in 21 years to 1991, old Hawthorn did not consolidate its support base, and five years later very nearly was forced into a merger with Melbourne. One suspects that new Hawthorn, one premiership into a new era, is not going to let this one slip.