ON WEDNESDAY night, Hassa Mann was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, adding another line of achievement to a CV that is highlighted by three Melbourne premierships in 1959, 1960 and 1964, and complemented by a veritable roll call of involvement in the game over more than half a century.

Meeting – and interviewing – Hassa in 1994 for my university studies was like stepping into the pages of a newspaper. These people didn’t have lives, surely?  We just read about the Club, and they were both legendary and mythical parts of it.  But one crushing handshake from Hassa soon put that theory to rest.

Hassa was at Melbourne as CEO at that stage. He served in the role from 1992 to 1997, adding an administrative dimension to his time with the Club.

It had all started back in 1959, when the boy from the Sunraysia League, already a success at the Merbein and Rutherglen Football Clubs, started out at Melbourne. After that introductory season, he came away with 17 games, the Best First Year Player award and the 1959 premiership to his name – and the acclaim of all. 

‘...Mann won our Best First-year Player Trophy, and enjoyed a very successful season. Only 18 years of age, this player created a big impression on all football followers ... we look forward with pleasure to his many more games for our Club.’ (MFC Annual Report, 1959)

A success on all levels, Hassa, who was a triple Best and Fairest in 1962, 1963 and 1967, added the 1960 and 1964 premierships to his roll call, and revelled in the experience of having Norm Smith as coach. 

All those decades on, you could tell that Smith had left his mark, part of quotes and habits engrained in the older Hassa. Forever grateful to the twin forces of Jim Cardwell who recruited him with the partial incentive of boots – two sizes too big – and the influence of Smith, Hassa crossed eras, and retains a connection to this day. He established a further connection early on through meeting his future wife, Glenys. She had made it to Melbourne well before Hassa, assisting her mother Madge on the Club’s Social Committee.

Hassa Mann is one of those who so successfully links past to present – and contributes for the future, as he retains an involvement in the Club to this very day. One of the sayings by which he lives rang through at his induction. 

‘Whatever I have achieved in life, I owe greatly to the Melbourne Football Club’. 

And he has achieved so much. 

Whether it’s Victorian representation in 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1968, being named All Australian in 1966, being part of the inaugural Australian team – the Galahs – to tour Ireland, or even beyond, to his premiership winning captain-coaching time at South Fremantle, Hassa Mann, No. 29, is one of the great stories of the Club and the game alike.

If you were trying to memorise Hassa’s career – and I tried to, before that first meeting back in 1994, quickly giving up and deciding to simply keep listing every achievement as he continued toting them up to this latest, greatest honour – it might be a good idea to split them into episodes. 

Departing Melbourne after 1968 as a Life Member and captain, he went to South Fremantle and became part of their 1970 premiership side, also playing for Western Australia in 1969 and 1970.  Heading back east, he went on to coach Caulfield, Eltham and Templestowe Football Clubs, before regaining red and blue as coach of the Melbourne Under 19s in 1986.

Becoming a member of Melbourne’s Board of Directors in 1989, Hassa took over as CEO in August 1992. Since his departure in mid-1997, he has maintained a definite presence, being named in the Club’s Team of the Century in 2000. He is also in Melbourne’s Hall of Fame, was named as a ‘Hero’ for the 150^th in 2008, and, in special recognition from the Melbourne Cricket Club, was honoured with the Hans Ebeling Award in 2011 as one of those who has contributed significantly to the assorted sporting sections of the MCC.

Hassa Mann has long stepped out of the pages of the newspapers via which I knew him initially.

He is a wonderful part of the Melbourne Football Club, someone who we all treasure and listen to avidly for his knowledge, his experience and his good humour. 

There is no doubt that the young country kid from Merbein made the right decision in signing that Form 4 and heading to the MCG, way back in 1959. 

We congratulate him, and offer our best wishes to the entire Mann family on this latest and most memorable honour.