This has been a dreadful AFL season for club icons.

First Brisbane sack Michael Voss, then the AFL suspends Essendon’s James Hird for 12 months and now John Worsfold has resigned from West Coast.

They have eight premierships between them as players, captains and coaches.

If each is not the biggest name in his club’s history, he is among the top two or three.

But AFL coaching is a vicious, unforgiving business where even the loftiest status cannot save a man from sanction or a sad departure.

For Worsfold, West Coast’s rollercoaster ride since he coached the 2006 premiership team finally led him to decide it was time.

The Eagles had finished fourth and fifth in the past two seasons and so much was expected this year.

But their season never gained traction and they tumbled to 13th place.

Still, it is one bad year in an outstanding AFL career.

Worsfold, Hawthorn’s David Parkin and Geelong’s Reg Hickey are the only men to have separately captained and coached premiership teams at the same club.

Worsfold also holds the Eagles’ records for the most games as captain and coach.

The Eagles even have a room at their headquarters named after him.

“Woosha” is as West Coast as Perth itself.

He was a foundation Eagles player in 1987 and played 209 games for the club, establishing a well-earned reputation as a fearsome defender.

When Worsfold laid one of his trademark bumps, the unfortunate opposition forward did not return to his feet easily.

Worsfold also took it as well as he dished it out.

It was inevitable he would become captain, which happened in 1991.

Along with coach Mick Malthouse, Worsfold led the on-field evolution of the Eagles from a side with loads of potential to a mean, high-achieving machine.

He skippered the Eagles to their historic first two premierships in 1992 and ’94.

After retiring as a player in 1998, Worsfold had a year in the media and then became an assistant coach at Carlton.

West Coast’s favourite son took over as their coach in 2002.

They immediately returned to the finals and, after losing the 2005 grand final to Sydney, beat them the following year for the club’s third flag.

But big trouble was also brewing at the Eagles and Worsfold was soon grappling with one of the darkest eras in any AFL club’s history.

Social drugs ripped the Eagles apart, with much-loved former player Chris Mainwaring tragically dying, Chad Fletcher flat-lining in a Las Vegas hotel and Brownlow Medallist Ben Cousins eventually suspended by the AFL.

Cousins left the club and – as West Coast dealt with their serious off-field problems – on field, they quickly lost their mojo.

Captain Chris Judd accepted a lucrative offer from Carlton after the 2007 season.

They were second last in 2008 and last two years later.

But they rebounded just as quickly as they had declined, stunning the league by making a 2011 preliminary final.

Speculation about Worsfold’s future had raged throughout this season, especially when injuries and inconsistent form took their toll.

And now it’s all over.

But as club chairman Alan Cransberg noted at Thursday’s announcement, in 100 years, John Worsfold will still be an Eagles’ icon.