A significant rugby birthday was celebrated this week. Jim Mills, possibly the hardest Welsh, and indeed British, rugby player there’s ever been, turned 80.
In many ways, Mills was a physical specimen well before his time – 6ft 4ins and 18 stones of iron-like muscle, with hands like shovels and an edge that made him feared across many lands.
The image of Big Jim the enforcer is one the rugby league legend is more than aware of, of course. But it’s not one the 80-year-old ever feels the need to play up to, he previously told WalesOnline.
“You don’t go out to make a reputation as a hard man,” explains Mills. “It just comes naturally really.”
The fact he was sent off an estimated 20 times in his career and banned from the world’s greatest rugby-playing nation, enhanced the reputation somewhat.
“Across my career, that’s only around one red card each year!” …