West Coast premiership player turned premiership coach John Worsfold has been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in the latest accolade of a glittering football career.

Worsfold joined the decorated halls on Tuesday night in Melbourne, recognising his outstanding service to football.

The 57-year-old has one of the most glowing resumes as a player, coach and administrator, where he still currently serves as the Eagles’ Head of Football.

“It sits pretty high (with me) as recognition from the broader football industry because the majority of my footy journey was at one club,” Worsfold said.

Already a member of the West Australian Football Hall of Fame and the West Coast Eagles Hall of Fame, the hard-nosed defender has found success at every level on and off the field, helping Western Australia win its first-ever Teal Cup in 1985 before earning Rookie of the Year in his 1986 debut WAFL season.

An inaugural West Coast Eagle, he cemented his role as one of the most courageous defenders of his era, winning the club’s best and fairest in just his second season in 1988, with the medal later renamed in his honour in 2013.

“I was just thinking I don’t belong here, but I’m going to give it a crack,” he said.

“I took a leap of faith and joined this new group, and it happened so quickly. Throughout my junior footy career, I wore a North Melbourne guernsey with a No.4 on it, and then I get introduced as Ross Glendinning as the inaugural Eagles captain.”

He would become vice-captain in 1989 before taking over from Steve Malaxos in 1991, where he would lead the Eagles to their first grand final.

Worsfold was captain for their historic 1992 and 1994 flag success, while he also led the state in two of his five State of Origin matches before retiring after 209 games at the end of the 1998 season.

He was a member of West Coast’s team of the decade in 1996, and remained at half-back flank in teams named for the 20-year and 25-year anniversaries of the club.

“I’d always enjoyed the physical side of the game, but it did become something I thought we needed to stand up and show to the VFL,” he said.

“I didn’t have the flair to have too many hangers or the Peter Daicos natural ability to know where the goals were, but I did appear to have the natural ability to sniff a shirt-front out.”

After earning coaching experience at Carlton, he would return to the Eagles ahead of the 2002 season following the sacking of Ken Judge, where the team made finals in his first year.

Worsfold would lead the Eagles to back-to-back grand finals in 2005-06, where he claimed his third flag and first as coach in their one-point win over Sydney in the latter.

“We just recruited Chris Judd and had a pretty talented list, and very quickly, I pretty much made a pact that the Australian public needed to see this group of players playing on the MCG in a grand final because they will love what they see.

“My overarching joy was to see a group of young men as the siren sounded, celebrating with each other what they had achieved; that was an enormous sense of pride and really what I was there to be a small part of.”

He stepped down as coach at the end of 2013, having coached 281 games for the Eagles, and would later coach Essendon following their disastrous supplement saga, where he led them to finals in his second year.

It comes as West Australian great and four-time Sandover Medal winner Bill Walker was elevated to legend status.

Walker joins former State teammate Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer and Merv McIntosh as the Sandgropers who have earned a place among the game’s greatest figures.

Making his debut for the Swans in 1961, the tenacious rover went on to play 305 WAFL games - and 21 matches for WA winning a hat-trick of Sandover Medals in 1965, 1966 and 1967 to go with another in 1970, which made him the only player to have won the league’s highest individual honour on four occasions.

“There was plenty of hype about it all, but I’m the type of fella who tries to keep away from that stuff, but it was quite extraordinary how it all worked out,” he said.

After his playing career, he played an important role in negotiations as the VFL looked to expand to become a national competition

“The greatest thing for me about my career is as a country boy, is the number of people football involves from different walks of life.”