EVERY club has its share of characters but only one can lay claim to a Labour life peer as president (Baron Heycock of Taibach), two film stars among its supporting cast (Richard Burton, Michael Sheen) and the First Lady of Welsh rugby (Evelyn Mainwaring), born next door to a baker’s boy who grew up to win a Hollywood Oscar (Sir Anthony Hopkins).
Aberavon had them all and a great deal more, a club all the richer for having been forged amid the steelworks’ grime of Port Talbot. Their hard men had a suitably iron quality. John Richardson, showed his during Wales’ 1978 tour o...