Giant Haystacks

Throughout the Eighties, British wrestling ruled Saturday afternoon television. Fathers, sons and even the occasional woman across the land sat transfixed as grown men in lycra threw themselves across a 20 foot ring in Wolverhampton.

With his top hat, throne and legion of fans (including, apparently, the Queen), Big Daddy AKA Shirley Crabtree was the king of wrestling but his biggest adversary was the 6 ft 11 inch, 49-stone monolith known as Giant Haystacks.

Giant Haystacks was born Martin Ruane in mid-1940's London to Irish parents. Following early jobs as a builder and, inevitably, a bouncer, Ruane took up wrestling in 1967 but didn't hit the big time until wrestling became Saturday afternoon TV fodder in the Eighties with a regular audience of over 10 million.

In over ten years of bouts, Ruane never beat Big Daddy - or should that read, he was never allowed to beat Big Daddy. Far be it from me to suggest wrestling was/is staged. A strictly religious man, Ruane never fought on a Sunday.

Ruane's wrestling career took him across the Globe - he was made an honorary citizen of Zimbabwe - and his fanbase is said to have included the likes of Paul McCartney and Frank Sinatra.

He is reported to have maintained his strength with a daily breakfast consisting of twelve eggs and three pounds of bacon.

When the wrestling work dried up in the early Nineties, Ruane started a successful debt collection agency, but opportunity knocked again in 1995 when he was asked to fight Hulk Hogan in America under the moniker The Loch Ness Monster.

However, the bout never took place as shortly after Ruane was diagnosed with cancer. Martin bravely fought the disease for two years before sadly dying, aged just 52, on Sunday 29th November 1998.

At the time of his death, the Observer newspaper reported he was writing a TV comedy about wrestling.