Australian Football

Recruited from East Brunswick, Milham Hanna made his Carlton debut in 1986. Within just a few minutes he was being stretchered from the ground in agony, having damaged his anterior cruciate ligament, a serious injury from which recovery was by no means certain. However, Hanna was determined to make a go of his football career, and did everything the doctors and coaches asked of him during his 13-month recovery phase. When he resumed, he had lost nothing in pace, and had also bulked up considerably, enabling him to cope far better with the hurly burly of VFL football. "I was only a skinny kid back then," he later explained, "and there was nothing else for me to do for 12 months but do weights. So I spent the whole year in the weight room, which was a blessing in disguise."¹

Known by admiring Carlton supporters as 'the Cranium' (for a reason which requires no explanation), Hanna was especially renowned for his speed, ball skills and prodigious kicking ability. Even towards the end of his playing career, he still regularly beat all of his team mates over electronically timed dashes of 10, 15 and 40 metres.

Mil Hanna was at his best during the first half of the 1990s, gaining AFL All Australian selection in 1992 and finishing runner up to Stephen Kernahan in the Carlton best and fairest voting the same year. Named on a half back flank in Carlton's losing Grand Final team of 1993 Hanna was on a wing two years later as the Blues annihilated Geelong. The first Lebanese footballer to play the game at its highest level, he retired after the 1997 season with 190 League games to his credit.

Author - John Devaney