“STRAIGHT as an arrow, a fine player and just a nice fella to be around.”

That is Eddie Cunningham’s summing-up of former Wigan team-mate Geoff Fletcher, who passed away last week aged 74.

Cunningham, who went on to be a Great Britain international and Lance Todd Trophy winner, credits the big prop forward with helping him settle into the pro ranks after signing for Wigan as a teenager.

Cunningham said: “I was the oldest of 10 kids, and they were always looking up to me. But Fleck was the big brother I never had.

“When I signed for Wigan from Pilkington Recs they were a massive club. The A team trained on different days to the first team, so on the day I made my first team debut the first teamers had never met me before. I got a call to be at the ground for 6.30pm.

“I was sat in the changing rooms - maybe a bit star struck - I did not know whether I was playing or not.

“The first team players did not know who I was, but nobody spoke to me - and I was on the verge of walking back out.

“But Fleck came over – he was the only one of them who came to talk to me before the game. He said to me ‘You will be all right’. Fleck was always optimistic – no matter what.

“But 15 minutes prior to that I was on the verge of walking out of the door.

“He was a tough man, very straight too, but he was also very funny and quite compassionate.

“I saw all of those sides.”

Cunningham came off the bench that day playing for Wigan against Warrington, and he recalls how Fletcher looked after him in those early days – starting with the debut.

“They kicked off straight for me - and Geoff was stood in front of me and he shouted ‘Your ball Edward’ with his arms stretched out like Worzel Gummidge trying protect me from their chasers,” he said.

“Edward? Only my mum and dad called me Edward.

“I soon got to know Fleck and his ways and he used to drive me to training in the pig van that he’d been collecting swill in all day. We would always stop off at the Foresters in Billinge on the way back from training for a chat over a pint of mild.

“He was tough and a good ball player, slipping a pass in the tackle and directing play.

“In those days scrums were tough - when the front rows packed down the heads really did go in.

“He was up against all those tough guys in the 60s and 70s - back then on a prop’s CV you needed to be a psychopath or a sociopath. But Fleck was feared of none of them.

“He had an unusual way of dealing with it. It would all be getting heated, and the ref would call a scrum and we were waiting for it to flare up.

“But then Geoff would be there reciting nursery rhymes, as they were packing down.

“It really threw some of his opponents - hearing Hickory Dickory Dock as they were ready to clash heads, but that was Fleck.

“He could handle himself too, and had done a bit of boxing in the past and could use those skills if needed.”

Cunningham said he saw all of Fletcher’s attributes as a person.

“He was a very compassionate man - whether that was with animals or with teammates. You cannot buy what he had to give.

“He taught me one thing at Wigan - and that was never to ignore your injured colleagues. I saw that when I was young and just getting established in the first team and at that time Dougie Laughton was sidelined with an injury.

“Being injured and out of the game is tough – those players need to be involved, but Fleck was one of the few who went over speaking with Dougie and that taught me a lesson.”

Fletcher, who plied his trade for Leigh, Wigan, Oldham, Workington and most famously at Huyton, was noted for his straight talking approach and saying it as it is.

But he also had a comical side, telling tall stories that Cunningham occasionally fell for.

“Fleck was a funny guy – I don’t think he realised how funny he was too and for about four years I believed the tale he told me about John Wayne attending his wedding.

“I completely bought it – he even said the Duke was on his wedding photos.

“They had a right laugh at me for being Mr Gullible.”