IHEEM WALES REGIONAL CONFERENCE, EXHIBITION, & AWARDS


Apprentice of the Year Award


Above: Winner of the Apprentice of the Year Award, Samuel Burnett, is a Trainee Estates Officer in the Morriston Hospital Estates Department.


Above right: The winner of the Estates Champion of Champions Award, Jason Williams – Assistant Head of Operational Estates at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, began his NHS career in 2003 as an apprentice electrician.


teacher, Bill Samuels. Samuels quickly recognised his skill and talent for both football and rugby, with his rugby ability winning the young Gareth Edwards a scholarship to Millfield School in Somerset. At around this time he was also courted by Swansea Town FC, the forerunner to Swansea City FC, for whom he almost signed. In fact, the story goes, a letter from the football club offering him a contract sat hidden and unopened on the mantelpiece of his parents’ home for some time – the result being that he put rugby first and, as they say… ‘the rest is history’.


Rebecca Tyrrell of Sparkle discussed some of the children’s charity work to help children with complex needs and their families in the region.


First international cap at 19 Winning his first international cap for his country on 1 April 1967 aged 19 against France, Gareth Edwards went on to win 53 caps for Wales – including 13 as captain – between 1967 and 1978. Remarkably, all were won in succession; he never suffered a dip in form or injury that would allow anyone to take his place as a ‘natural’ number 9. He was also, aged 20, Wales’s youngest ever captain, and had the distinction of playing alongside two of the game’s best outside halves, Barry John and Phil Bennett. During this playing era, Wales dominated the Five Nations, winning the title seven times, including three Grand Slams.


Sir Gareth also played 10 times for the British and Irish Lions, including for the 1971 Lions team that won a series in New Zealand, and for the unbeaten 1974 side in South Africa. His 12 seasons for Cardiff saw him score 69 tries in 195 games. A remarkable player and


athlete, and one of Wales’s greatest ever sportsmen, his most famous, of many memorable moments on the rugby field, came playing for the Barbarians against the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park on 27 January 1973. During the match he scored what has been dubbed ‘the greatest try ever’, with the help of team-mates Phil Bennett, JPR Williams, John Dawes, Derek Quinnell, Tommy David, and John Pullin. Slipping between two team-mates, and seemingly intercepting the last pass, he finished the move with a diving try in the left-hand corner, in a match that the Barbarians won 23-11. Also a keen angler, he married local


24 Health Estate Journal June 2025


Estates Champion of Champions


girl, Maureen, from the same village, in 1972, and in 2019 the pair appeared in the BBC series, Gareth Edwards’ Great Welsh Adventure, which returned for a second series in 2021. Ironically – returning to his most famous try, such was


the speed at which the ball was passed from one end of the field to the other that no still photographs of it were taken. During a 45-minute chat with Adrian Davies at the Gala Dinner, Sir Gareth explained that at the time sports photographers would run the length of the touchline with their cameras to capture the key moments. On this occasion, none could keep up with the rampaging Welsh team, meaning only television video footage of the spectacular try survived.


The ‘rugby picture of the century’ – that never was “Had the game been played at the modern-day Principality Stadium, it would have been captured by at least 10 photographers behind the dead-ball line in that part of the ground,” said Gareth’s friend, Scott Salter. He continued: “It would have been the rugby picture of the century! But we checked with agencies, picture libraries, and noted photographers of the era, and those in more recent times. There is simply nothing, and Gareth couldn’t recall ever signing a photo or seeing a painting of his try.” Keen that such a sporting milestone should be preserved in perpetuity, financial services professional, Scott Salter, and Adrian Davies – both close mates of Sir Gareth, suggested to him in the run-up to a celebratory lunch in 2024 to mark his 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the try, that he commission a painting, by Welsh artist, Elin Siân Blake, of the moment the try was scored. Created with significant input from the try-scorer himself, the painting took her over a year to complete.


Early influences acknowledged In an entertaining and whimsical conversation with Adrian Davies at the dinner about his memorable career, Sir Gareth paid tribute to his early influences, and particularly his PE and sports master, Bill Samuels. He said one of the key things rugby had taught him was that success in life – in sport or elsewhere – is never achieved without hard work. His conversation with ‘The Wizard’ was infused with humour – for instance he recalled throwing himself across the bed in the living room at Elin Siân Blake’s home – she was recovering from knee surgery at the time – to give as authentic as possible an impression of the try to help her capture the moment. A charity auction at the Dinner, in aid of Sparkle, saw one of a run of the limited edition prints created of the try – featuring an original hand-written signature from both Sir Gareth and the artist, won by Kim Shelley, Operations


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