Okay, so it may not carry the clout of Bruce Doull’s headband . . . but the Hanna Bandana – that triangular strip of blue and white cloth that shielded Milham Hanna’s cranium from the relentless Australian sun – has earned renewed attention with Chris Judd putting in the hard yards through the pre-season.
“The Juddster” is unlikely to take to the track any time soon sporting a bandana – which is a shame according to Mil given the item’s potential marketability.
“I’d love to see Chris Judd wear a bandana in Carlton colours,” said Hanna, Carlton’s 190-game Premiership player of 1995.
“I’m surprised they’re not walking out of Carlton’s merchandise shop. Have you taken a look at today’s supporters? They’ve all got shaved heads.”
Mil remembered donning the bandana on a regular basis through the pre-season period. He would soak the bandana in cold water to be sun smart, in the tradition of the late Jim Stynes who tended to sport the baseball cap pre-season, “but I was also trying to set a trend”.
“I’m trying to think if I wore the bandana into a home-and-away game. I’ve got a shocking memory but I reckon I might have,” Hanna said.
“It would have been early in the season where we were playing somewhere pretty warm. It would been in one of ‘Parko’s’ (Coach David Parkin’s) games because I wouldn’t have got away with it in ‘Wallsy’s' (Coach Robert Walls’) time.
Mil Hanna wears the bandana in a pre-season practice match against Collingwood in 1997.
Hanna has also revealed for the first time an incredible story relating to Grand Final week in 1995, when rumours abounded that Carlton & United Breweries had offered him $1 million to sport a temporary CUB tattoo on the back of his bald head for the big one against Geelong.
“The rumour was about. It wasn’t started by me and I never found out who started it, but that’s all it was – a rumour,” Hanna said.
“The funny thing was that a week before the Grand Final I got a call from a bloke at Essendon Nissan who said ‘We want to talk to you about a sponsorship proposal, to put an Essendon Nissan tattoo on your head’,” Hanna revealed.
“I said ‘How much are you going to pay me to make a fool of myself on Grand Final day?’ and the bloke said ‘$2000’. I said ‘You’ve got to be joking – there’ll be millions watching on Grand Final day – what would you pay for an ad on TV?’.”
Hanna added that in retrospect he should have marketed the Hanna Bandana, noting that the original item was now gathering dust in a drawer somewhere at his Mum’s house.
