Premiership star Jeremy McGovern recognised with life membership of West Coast Eagles

Premiership hero and Albany footy star Jeremy McGovern was one of six life members honoured by the West Coast Eagles earlier this month. McGovern received the club’s highest recognition on March 4 at a function at Mineral Resources Park, along with teammate Elliot Yeo, former chairman Michael Smith, long-serving volunteer David Grace AM QC and club executives Deane Pieters and Gary Stocks. McGovern and Yeo qualified for life membership for their remarkable on-field contributions, playing 150 AFL matches, the pinnacle for the pair being their 2018 premiership triumph over Collingwood. Raised in Albany, McGovern is a remarkable success story after being rookie-listed by the Eagles as a teenager and then growing into one of the AFL’s elite intercept defenders. In the life member biography, the 29-year-old’s journey is told from being drafted to becoming an integral part of the West Coast Eagles’ defensive structure. McGovern is a four-time All-Australian (2016-19) and was runner-up in the Eagles’ club champion award in 2017. He has been a vice-captain for the past three years and initiated the famous match-winning play in the 2018 grand final against the Magpies, taking a strong intercept mark deep in defence that helped set up the sealer from Dom Sheed. Stocks hails from Albany, where he began his media career as a journalist with the Albany Advertiser. He joined the Eagles in November 2000 as general manager of communications and has been a member of the club’s executive ever since. Stocks has overseen the growth of the department that now takes responsibility for production of digital and social content, design and media management.