He was Swansea through and through and if the Vetch Field Barmy Army had been around in his playing days they would have loved him.

Harry Griffiths was everything to the football club — player, physio, coach, trainer, assistant manager and manager — and if he had been asked to wash the kit and paint the Centre Stand on a Sunday he would probably have done it.

No-one would have been surprised if he'd had white blood running through him. He was that sort of guy.

He loved Swansea Town when he was a player and he loved Swansea City just as much when he worked his way through the backroom staff at the Vetch to eventually take the top job.

Whatever role he had he went about it with a twinkle in his eye and often a cheeky grin, but that did not disguise the fact that he knew his football.

It was Griffiths, during his stint as manager, who turned Alan Curtis from a midfield player of promise into a striker of great talent — a move which paid rich dividends for both club and country.

At his funeral, John Toshack, who had been with the club only a matter of weeks, steering Swansea to promotion after succeeding Griffiths as manager, paid him the ultimate tribute.

"This is Harry's team, not mine. It's his triumph," he said. "He was Swansea City."

Griffiths joined Swansea in 1949 as a left-winger. He made his name in a team containing the Allchurch brothers, Medwin, Ford and Cliff Jones and won his only Wales cap in that position before switching to left-back.

In all he made 422 league appearances for the club and earned himself a reputation of being a tough-tackling defender, as many opposing right-wingers would testify.

He was released in 1964 and joined Merthyr, but returned in April 1967 as coach.

For the next 11 years he was a vital member of the backroom team but died tragically in the Vetch treatment room on the day the side containing Charles, Curtis and Robbie James beat Scunthorpe to clinch promotion.

There could have been no finer epitaph to a man whose heart was always at Vetch Field.