Jeff's tale of tragedy and redemption

JEFF Whitefoot had lost his job after the miners’ strike in 1985 shortly before the Welsh Rugby Union voted against the Lions visiting South Africa the following year.

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The first of the Four Home Unions to make a belated stand against apartheid, the decision led to the cancellation of the tour. For the second time in successive years, Wales’ international loosehead felt the tectonic plates shift beneath his feet.

The first convulsion left thousands of his mining brethren counting the cost of an industrial dispute which divided families and destroyed communities. When it ended, Whitefoot, below, had to endure the cruel irony of being told that his job half-a-mile underground had gone.

Bedwas Navigational Colliery, where the local boy had been employed as a coalface electrician, was the first pit to close post-strike. Out of work, Whitefoot could at least look forward to the prospect of making the cut for the Lions at the end of the following season.

Now, again through no fault of his own, that, too, had been taken from him. His mood would not have been improved by any cheerful soul volunteering the over-optimistic view that every now and then even the blackest cloud has a silver lining.

And that explains why in the pantheon of the Lions reserved for those who have earned their stripes through be-longing to a touring team like no other, Jeff White-foot has a place which he, and he alone, occupies.

To be a Lion is hard enough; to become a Test Lion ten times harder.