A humble hero who had a big heart ...

A DARK cloud of sorrow has been hovering above St Thomas’ Church at the east end of Swansea this Christmas over the loss of one of its most beloved disciples, Geoff Wheel.

- PETER JACKSON

Given his sheer size, it ought not to surprise anyone that there was room enough within his vast frame to house two Geoff Wheels; each revered in very different ways, from his ripping skills in the closest forms of combat on the rugby field to his tireless work for the hungry and the homeless.

There was Geoff Wheel renowned for keeping the fires burning as stoker-in-chief throughout two Welsh Grand Slam voyages. When the going got unusually tough, they could always rely on his sheer strength to find a route into calmer waters.

And to think that Swansea Town (as they were then) made it all possible by deciding that the 15-yearold Geoffrey was ‘too soft’ to realise his boyhood ambitions of playing centre-half for The Swans. The manager, the late Harry Griffiths, let him go never realising what a mighty favour he had just done Welsh rugby.

The story will have one of Wheel’s Irish opponents moving one hand gingerly across his jaw to make sure it’s all in one piece. Stewart McKinney, one of the invincibles Lions of 1974 and no slouch himself in dispensing rough justice, went down like a sack of Ulster spuds when Wales and Ireland staged the opening match of the 1977 Five Nations.

Apart from an uncapped fixture against Argentina the previous autumn, the hosts had not played a match of any description since the Grand Slam victory over France, one which prompted their captain to talk in terms of winning a Slam treble.