During his 18-year tenure to 2000 he appointed 150 chaplains to Australia's professional sports including numerous AFL Clubs and in those heady years of development he found some very open and willing club administrators and coaches.
Delma Tronson commented, "Mark was tireless in building good relationships with the Sports (coaches and administrators). This is an area of the foundation of the sports ministry few appreciated as the emotional stress involved in establishing an appointment was phenomenal." [Since 2000 as chairman of Well-Being Australia Mark and Delma's ministry centres on athlete respite].
Although the story of those early years is recorded in his 1994 book 'No Orchestra, No Trumpet' (now out of print), the AFL finals give rise to retell a little of those early negotiations.
The initial AFL Club contact was the Sydney Swans simply because it was Mark and Delma's home town. It was late 1984 that acclaimed coach Tom Hafey warmed to the idea of a chaplaincy.
Tom Hafey was so inspired that some years later on the ABC Grandstand sports radio program he cited Mark Tronson as a source of good advice, even though he was not actually the chaplain for the Swans' team.
It was, in fact, John Rees (who later served as a missionary in Thailand for 20 years) who was the first Sydney Swans chaplain in 1985.
M V Tronson then travelled to Melbourne, the home of AFL football. Accompanied by Reverend Paul Burnham, he first met with John Northey the coach of the Melbourne Club. They chatted at the training ground beside the five tier seating adjacent to the car park.
M V Tronson thought it provident to illustrate a different manner of negotiation, so he collected some flat pebbles as in David and Goliath, set up a marker, and as he chatted to John Northey, he tested his aiming skills. Both John Northey and Paul Burnham commented that his throwing aim was 'somewhat challenged'.
Other Melbourne AFL clubs followed suit each with a separate intuitive negotiation process on behalf of M V Tronson, then it was a trip to the Brisbane Bears.
Coach Peter Knights thought the idea was well worthy of an appointment, where M V Tronson introduced Dean Davis. This proved to be the first of many examples where a coach immediately recognised the benefits and value of Christian ministry.
"Dean Davis was also one of the very first accredited 'lay chaplains'. Dean went on to be the chaplain for twenty years. He enjoyed having Christian AFL players in the squads developing a caring discipling ministry, which was separate to the wider team chaplaincy." M V Tronson noted.
AFL clubs across the nation quickly accepted chaplains; and when the Port Adelaide Club came into the competition in the early 90s, Mark Tronson took the opportunity to introduce Reverend Brandon Chaplin.
"The television news caught hold of the story as Reverend Chaplin finished first in his initial cross country training run with the players," M V Tronson smiled. "The presenter smiling, referred to Port Adelaide's newest appointment as 'Chaplain Chaplin'!"
Due to the high profile nature of AFL Football, a number of press stories and sports magazines have featured the AFL team's chaplaincies, illustrating the value of the ministry by quoting personal testimonials of players, coaches and administrators.
"In this context, Essendon club chaplain Alan Dunn had been lauded in numerous media contexts during the tenure of coach Kevin Sheedy.