Family and friends in tribute to Woolmer

BOB WOOLMER’S family and friends attended a memorial service yesterday near the Pakistan cricket coach’s home in South Africa.

The service in a Cape Town suburb was led by Anglican priest Jerome Francis, who was one of hundreds of poor black and mixed-race boys coached by Woolmer in the 1980s.

Tears and tributes flowed as Woolmer’s widow Gill and sons, Dale and Russell, heard how he defied apartheid to create one of the country’s first mixed-race teams and nurture talent like South Africa batsman Herschelle Gibbs.

“Here was a man with so much worth to humanity,” Francis told 300 mourners at Wynberg Boys’ High School where Woolmer spotted a young Jacques Kallis who went on to play for South Africa.

Woolmer coached South Africa’s test and one-day team and led the Proteas to the 1999 World Cup semi-finals. “He’s still the most successful coach South Africa’s ever had,” spin bowler Paul Adams said.

“We have lost a great soldier in the game.”