Hayden Kennedy

Hayden Kennedy (born 16 October 1965 in Airport West, Melbourne) is a former Australian rules football field umpire in the Australian Football League (AFL) and is also a teacher at St Bernard's College Essendon.

After five AFL Grand Finals and a record 495 games, Kennedy announced his retirement on 10 August 2011.

Kennedy was a very promising junior footballer with St Christophers Football Club in the Oak Park Junior Football League, a club which also produced AFL legends Simon and Justin Madden. Kennedy completed his secondary schooling at St Bernard's College Essendon where he now currently teaches as a Physical Education and a maths teacher.

Kennedy commenced a career as an umpire in the Essendon District Football League in 1983. After one season there, he was recruited into the VFL cadets squad.

In 1986, Hayden Kennedy umpired the under 19 VFL grand final, and by 1987 had been promoted to the senior list. At this level he umpired the VFL reserves and country football matches.

Kennedy had his Australian Football League umpiring debut in 1988, officiating a game between North Melbourne and Carlton. Kennedy’s partner on the day was fellow 300 game umpire Peter Cameron.

In the 1995 AFL season, Kennedy umpired in all 22 weeks of Home and Away games, and a further 4 weeks of finals. He was the first umpire to achieve this in 38 years, and the 11th field umpire to do so.

He umpired his first AFL Grand Final in 1995. The game, involving Carlton and Geelong, was shared with boundary umpire Allan Cook. Both Kennedy and Cook had been field umpires together on the cadet squad at the beginnings of their careers and both reached the pinnacle of achievement on the same day having followed very different paths.

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