The rain was pelting down on Subiaco Oval on a dismal Sunday in May, 1987, as the players left the ground following the final siren of a reserves game between East Perth and Claremont in front of a dozen spectators.Trudging off and bringing up the rear was Claremont’s Mark Hann.In his fifth season at the Tigers, the midfielder had managed  twenty five games of league football, and the outlook was looking just as bleak as the weather. Just turned twenty four, the dismal scenario struck him as an illustration of the situation his football was at, and as he headed to the showers made an instinctive decision.“That was my last game,” he said to team mate Peter (Icepak) Owens, as they wearily walked through the gate. “I’m going to West Coast Amateurs and start to enjoy my footy again.”That Mark Hann resurrected his career to become one of only two Claremont players to play in four premierships, captain Western Australia, win a club fairest and best, and become a life member of the Tigers, is one of the inspirational stories of our game, one that is a lesson for young aspiring players, and one that Hann himself has used in his business life.   Not to mention the loss of a star recruit for West Coast Amateurs.A surprise inclusion in the league side the following week, Mark made the most of the opportunity, to the extent that four months after virtually giving league football away after a game at Subiaco Oval, he was on the dias at almost the same spot sporting a premiership medallion.Perhaps it was the early mentoring of under seventeens coach Brearley Hollingsworth that sowed the seeds of persistence in the young Hann. “Brearley was big on professionalism,” Mark said. Hann wandered into Claremont Oval in 1981, but was a bit small at the time, and couldn’t get a  colts game. His determination was to the fore even then, as he hung in and was in the reserves team that lost the first semi final that year.The side, under Lloyd Christopher, went one better in 1982, and Hann got his first taste of premiership football when they won the reserves grand final.Mark made his league debut against Swan Districts in the opening round of 1983, starting on the bench, but kicked a goal with his first possession after moving onto Keith Narkle.  A hard running player, who was hard to catch over the first ten metres, Hann was one of the most dedicated trainers at the club, always among the top three in pre season testing, with just one exception.  “I could never beat Michael Mitchell,” he said.He played fifteen games that year, and things were looking bright for the youngster, but  the following four seasons only produced ten league appearances. “I don’t think I was a good fit in Graeme Moss’s plans,” he recalled.The 1987 flag, under new coach Gerard Neesham, heralded a prolific era for Claremont, and Hann was part of six grand finals, winning four. Vice captain for the 1989 win over South Fremantle, he captained the side in 1990, when runners up to Swan Districts, but was still at the helm the following year for the seventy seven point victory over Subiaco. “Brian Beresford took over the winning combination in 1992 and steered a straight course to the bottom,” he joked.A fiery customer early in his career, Mark was reported by umpires on several occasions, one of which was the aftermath of a stouch with Perth’s Bryan Cousins. “I got four weeks and he got two,” he recalled. “Bryan was ropeable, it was the only time he’d been booked in three hundred and five games of league football.”  Selected in a 1989 All Stars State team in a year in which there were no interstate games played, Mark Hann enjoyed his best year in 1990, when he won Claremont’s fairest and best award and captained Western Australia in his interstate debut at Football Park against South Australia, a rare honour, and one we believe to be unique.   “It was a game in which they were expected to blow us off the park,” he recalled. “It was just before the entry of the Adelaide Crows into the AFL, and after West Coast joined, so we were without a heap of stars, while they had an open slate. Many of that SA side went on to be part of the Crows.  But it was amid strong concerns about the effect the Crows would have on the local competition, so it was a boost to see the WA boys do so well.”Western Australia lost 14.16 to 17.9 in a plucky display.At the end of the 1992 season, Hann decided to retire from league football. “I was in the process of changing occupations from teaching to accountancy, and my studies for the new venture took up two nights a week, which, coupled with football training, was making it harder to juggle both careers,” he said.  “When I told Neesham of my decision, he persuaded me to stay for one more year. “We can do it again,” were Gerard’s comments.”    The advice was spot on, as Claremont rebounded to take the 1993 flag, beating West Perth by thirty points in the grand final.Thirty years of age, going on thirty one, and veteran of a hundred and sixty six games, Hann did pre season training for the 1994 season as energetically and enthusiastically as any of the other thirteen.Notorious for being one of the first on the track, he didn’t front one night on the eve of the season. “I was sitting in my office, looked at the clock, and it was five pm,” he recalled. “Right there and then I realised I’d lost the passion, picked up the phone, and dialed Neesham’s number. This time there was no argument, he understood.”Mark Hann served on the Claremont Football Club Board in 1995 and 96. “It was a good experience. I may well do it again when the kids get a bit older.”  Tom, twelve, and Will, nine, will keep him busy with junior footy for a while to come.  The boys come from good stock. Mum Melissa is the daughter of well known Wembley Amateurs identity, Malcolm “Boxer” Murray, a leading amateur footballer for many years, and former club president.These days, Mark is a partner in Tactica Partners, who specialize in accounting and business improvement strategies, and can always find a spare few minutes for a coffee and yarn about footy, so feel free to drop in to their offices in Churchill Avenue, Subiaco.  He enjoys surfing, running, Rottnest, and bike riding.Brad Collard, Darryn Bewick, Peter Matera, Willie Roe, and Phil Narkle were some of his toughest opponents, while Michael Mitchell (“the most exciting”) Ben Allan, Peter Thorne, Tony Evans, and Don Pyke were great team mates.  A story by Charles Dickens was entitled A Tale Of Two Cities.  This one should be labled A Tale Of Two Careers. Twenty five league games  in four  and a half ordinary seasons was more than quadrupled in the next  seven and a half, and Mark Hann became a star of the WAFL.Dickens’s book was a classic, and so was Claremont wingman Mark Hann.