Thomas Completes Gruelling Task He Said He’d Left Behind

Hats off – or racing helmets, to be specific – to Geoff Thomas on his latest amazing feat of endurance.

For an incredible seventh time, the former Wolves midfielder and his team have ridden the 2,000-plus miles of the Tour de France course and savoured the cheers of those lining the finishing stretch on the Champs-Elysees.

And the monumental achievement looks like putting another £1million into the coffers of Cure Leukaemia, the charity with which he has been synonymous since being desperately ill with the disease more than 20 years ago. 

All this represents quite a climbdown from Thomas’s stated intentions – repeated on a match-day visit to Molineux in the spring of 2024 – to leave others to do the pedalling from now on.

Wasn’t it record-breaking rower Sir Steve Redgrave who said after winning gold at the 1996 Olympics that anyone finding him even thinking of going close to a boat in future ‘has my permission to shoot me’. Well, he was soon back on the water and training with the vengeance that won him another gold in Sydney four years later.

We can now clearly put MBE recipient Thomas into a similar glutton-for-punishment category and there has been a hint this week that even he was running ‘purely on fumes’ in this latest 21-day slog.

“I was the most unfit I’ve been taking on this challenge,” he admitted. “I’ve done it numerous times… but taking on a challenge like that and meeting in Paris is magical.

“I am proud of my team and I’m proud of the charity. That’s why I carry on doing this.”

Wolves Heroes’ David Instone made a £1,000 presentation to the former England international and Cure Leukaemia while interviewing him for Backpass magazine in 2022 and has sent him a congratulatory message again this week. 

We are grateful to the BBC, though, especially our friends on the station at Hereford and Worcester, for the quotes in this story.

“Everyone’s been so good on this event,” he added. “We’ve bonded as a team. You become like a family and after a few weeks together doing a ridiculously hard challenges every day is a bond that’s built for life.”

The Worcestershire-based 61-year-old, who set up the Geoff Thomas Foundation in 2005, has revealed that messages from his former Crystal Palace team-mate, Gareth Southgate, had been a regular source of support.

His early 1990s England colleague, Gary Lineker, is also on board as a supporter.

*We at Wolves Heroes wish to express our condolences to the family and friends of Brian Owen, the former Molineux defender and coach who has died aged 80. We will be writing more about this highly popular south-east figure in due course.