It was a scandalous front-page headline of the Advertiser and a cheeky call to a friend that sparked the “accidental” political career of Greg Stocks.

Now mayor of the city he emphatically describes as the “best in Australia”, Mr Stocks has lived a life shaped by his careers in sport, education and business, and most importantly, an enduring love for his hometown.

Infuriated by the shambles of the then-council, which was embroiled in legal strife and had recently made headlines after failing to pass its annual budget — a drama documented in an August 2011 edition of this masthead — he called up deputy mayor Dennis Wellington.

“I rang Dennis and said to him, “our city was always on the front page of the Advertiser, negatively badly behaved, dysfunctional; how can you not pass your own budget when you have months and months to sort that out?’, he said.

“They were all fighting and suing each other and Dennis said to me, ‘well, put up or shut up.’

“I’d never actually ever thought about going into the local government and at cricket with Dennis, I said alright, you smart a. . . , I’ll put my name up.

“He rang me on election night and said, ‘where are you?’. I said, ‘I’m at home’ and he said, ‘well, you better get down here, you’re going to win.’

“I went oh no, what have I done!”

More than 15 years on, he is the polished figurehead of the City of Albany — but many may not know the talented WAFL footballer, teacher, and entrepreneurial businessman that came before that.

The Stocks family moved to Albany from Collie when he was 11, for his parents to work in the city’s twin industries of the time — whaling and wool production — and he attended the now-defunct Christian Brothers College and Albany Senior High School.

A talented cricketer and a gun footballer who starred for the Royals’ midfield, he was recruited to play for Claremont Football Club, but was forbidden to go to Perth by his father unless he was also working or studying.

“He said to me that I’ve got to try and find a job in the government or something because I was useless with my hands, which was true, so I thought oh well, I like reading books, I’ll just go and be an English teacher,” he said.

After a few years of studying at teachers college where he was a “straight C-student”, and playing, as he humbly describes, “not very well” in a Claremont side that included Darrell Panizza, Allen ‘Shorty’ Daniels, and the Krakouer brothers Phil and Jim, he returned to Albany.

Having few offers for teaching jobs, he joined his father at Hunts Fish Canning Factory and it was at this time that he met his wife, Eleanor.

“I went to see my mum when I got home from Perth, and Eleanor was working with my mum as housemaids in the motel,” he said.

“She saw me and said to my mum, ‘I’m going to marry that guy’.

“I thought I’d done the clever work but she was always calling the shots.”

A teacher posting opened in Boddington, which was later followed by one at his alma matter ASHS, where he stayed for about 16 years in various positions.

A pivot into private enterprise came in 1996 when he started SkillHire, a labour hire and apprenticeship training business with friends, in an era where few companies of the sort existed.

While there were many highs in his business — the day he secured the lucrative contract to staff Fletchers abattoir by refusing to leave the company’s head office in Dubbo until the papers had been signed, and its expansion to become one of the State’s leading apprenticeship trainers — there were lows too.

“A couple of times we thought we were going to lose our house,” he said.

“We were expecting to get another extension to the (Fletchers) contract, but the industry had gone through some turmoil, they’d gone from two shifts to one, so they decided not to renew the contract.

“We had just purchased a business in Perth on the cash flow that we were going to generate out of the next three years of that contract, very stupidly.

“We couldn’t get out of it, so we were just head down, bum up for a couple of years to get ourselves out of the hole we dug, and it turned out OK, but it was very unnerving.”

He left SkillHire to the care of his business partners and in 2013 started InterpreData, a data analytics and technology company specialising in supply chain traceability, bioinformatics, and scientific data analysis.

This gig has fruited wonderfully, with Mr Stocks now preparing to open a Dutch branch of the company that will focus on rapid tracing of DNA for timber in wake of new European deforestation regulations.

It was the same year he started this new company that he successfully ran for deputy mayor, making the late call to run for the top job when Mr Wellington stepped back in 2023.

He has achieved the vast majority of what he set out to do in the role — seven-day trading, the upcoming airport upgrade, the huge 2026 bicentenary program, the Mt Clarence/Mt Adelaide walking and bike trails, and his beloved artificial surf reef — with one niggling exemption.

“The only thing I probably won’t be able to do much about is the North Albany Structure Plan and Range Road,” he said.

“It was in the hands of DPLH when I was elected mayor and had been for probably about 12 months before that and we are yet to see the draft.

“So, with a year to go, by the time we go to public consultation, it’s probably now a job we can set the scene for the next mayor.”

Happy with his decade and a half of service, he doesn’t plan to contest the mayoral election next year, turning his attention to IntrepreData, his grandchildren, reversing the effects of “occupational hazard sausage rolls” and, most importantly, work on his golf handicap.

”Albany’s been very, very good to me my whole life,” he said.

“It gave me my early sporting life; I have always had a job, not necessarily particularly skilled job, but it was a job; the ability to buy a house cheap enough, so we got started as a family.

“But I think I’m probably a person who has taken the opportunities that present themselves — some come along and pass you by, but every now and again you decide to do something that changes everything.

“So, I’m here in local government, and I’m a mayor by accident, really, not by design.

“We’re living in one of the best cities in one of the best countries in the world and I’m very lucky to be its mayor.”