Stevie Wright is 62 and doing something this year that’s he pretty much never done before … he’s not involved in football. Except as a fan.

Living on the Victorian tourism hotspot of Phillip Island, a 90-minute drive south-east of Melbourne across the San Remo Bridge, the champion rover and Swans Team of the Century member has put behind him 30 years of coaching, which has taken him far and wide.

From the highly-aspirational environments of Clarence in the then Tasmanian Football League (1993-95), Central Districts in the SANFL (1996-97) and the NSW/ACT Rams in the AFL Under-18 program (1998-2000) to the less intense but equally demanding coaching jobs at Queanbeyan and Weston Creek in Canberra, North Ballarat then in the VFL, Caulfield Grammarians in the Victorian Amateurs, Highett, his junior club at Oakleigh Districts and Murrumbeena in Melbourne’s Southern Football League.

And after moving to Phillip Island in 2015, he’s coached at MDU in Gippsland, more formally Meenihan Dumbalk United, Kilcundah Bass in the West Gippsland League and last year Dalyston in the South Gippsland League.

He’s spent a veritable lifetime giving back to football and is now on the reunion circuit. He gets to as many Swans reunions formal and otherwise as possible, was in Hobart last week for the 30-year reunion of his 1993 Clarence premiership side and is already looking forward to doing likewise next year with the 1994 premiership side.

Living with wife Kerrie, his 38-year-old son Josh and his partner Melissa, and catching up regularly with daughter Jessica in Melbourne, Wright still works full-time at the Philllip Island Nature Park, on duty from 6am-2.30pm so he has plenty of time to enjoy the island pleasures.

“It’s pretty relaxed here,” he said of Victoria’s second-biggest tourist resort, a 101 square kilometre holiday sanctuary which is home to about 20,000 people plus the world-famous penguins and the Australian Motor Cycle Grand Prix, and even has its own golf course.

“It was about 12,000 people pre-Covid but now everyone wants to live here … it’s beautiful. I bought a block of land here in the 1980s and it was always the plan to live here. We’ve had a house here since 2005.”

Inducted into the Swans Hall of Fame in 2011, Wright has countless mates from his Swans days, including fellow Oakleigh boys David Rhys-Jones and Warwick Capper. He was best man at Rhys-Jones’ wedding and vice-versa, and had Capper live with him post football. “He rang and asked if he could stay for a couple of days – and stayed a couple of months”.

That’s Stevie Wright. Winner of the Bob Skilton Medal in 1985 and 1990, equal 12^th on the Swans all-time games list at 246 and 15^th on the all-time goals list at 247, and a member of the crusading Swans who moved from South Melbourne to Sydney, he’s everyone’s best mate.

And with brother Michael, a 40-game South Melbourne player from 1978-80 now living and selling wine in Adelaide, the 171cm dynamo shares a unique record. He represented Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, and Michael represented Queensland and South Australia.

Wright, 17 months younger and 16cm shorter than his brother, also shared in an extraordinary Swans scoring streak in Rounds 16, 17 and 18 at the SCG in 1987, when they kicked 30 goals three weeks in a row, totalling 635 points, to beat West Coast, Essendon and Richmond by a combined 310 points.

It was 30.21 (201) to 10.11 (71) against the Eagles on a Sunday, 36.20 (236) to 11.7 (73) against the Bombers seven days later, and 31.12 (198) to 15.17 (107) against the Tigers on  a five-day turnaround to Friday night.

Wright kicked 15 goals – 8, then 5, then 2 – and polled five Brownlow votes – three against West Coast and two against Essendon. Capper kicked 5-6-5, Barry Mitchell 3-3-2, Gerard Healy 1-4-1, Mark Bayes 2-3-3 and Tony Morwood 2-2-4 for four votes – two each against Essendon and Richmond.

“We all knew what we were trying to do and everyone played well,” he said. “That won’t ever happen again.”

Wright’s eight goals against West Coast in Round 16, the Swans’ second game against the 1987 competition newcomers, remains the most by a Sydney player against the Eagles and is equal to the Eagles’ best against the Swans set by Peter Sumich at Subiaco in 1990.