The honour was announced at the club’s recent annual general meeting at which Aaron Mahony was named first grade captain for the coming season.

Trappel follows in the footsteps of his father and brother in being bestowed with the honour.

“I am humbled to be awarded life membership of Western Suburbs Cricket Club,” he said.

“My passion and love for the club stems from watching my father represent Wests in the 1980s. It’s truly a great honour to join him and other legends to become a life member of the club.”

The club’s committee confirmed that representative star Aaron Mahony would take the reins as first grade captain in 2017-18 after a successful stint in 2012-13 when Wests won the club championship.

Mahony is a highly credentialed cricketer having represented Central North Zone on a number of occasions as well as Hunter Valley Cricket and Maitland District Cricket Associations.

He started his cricketing career as a Western Suburbs Junior progressing through to first grade.

“I am excited to captain at the club where I started as a junior after a stint as captain in 2012/13, the year we won the club championship,” Mahony said. 

“I am looking forward to the challenge of captaining first grade and leading the core of last year’s team to success and working with the club’s emerging younger players.”

In other news the club welcomes back Tom Irwin after he moved interstate at the beginning of 2016.

There are changes off the field as well with a new management committee elected to be led by Gary Fisher who assumes the reins as president,. 

Tina Parnell joins the committee as the new secretary while Noel Lawler and Tony Williams continuing in their roles as treasurer and junior president respectively.

“I am honoured to be elected president of a club that I have had a long association with as a player, committee member and coach,” Fisher said. “I am looking forward to leading the club into a new era. 

“I am especially pleased to see a number of new faces on the club’s committee.

“In particular it is great for the club that a number of females have come on board this year to fill key roles with Tina Parnell as secretary; Katrina McKeough as website co-ordinator; Amy Jarrett handling the club’s social media channels and Lisa Partridge joining the committee as a general member”.