I'd remarked after his younger brother Tony's funeral only weeks ago that if we had recorded everything said that day, we would have had all the material needed for Chapter 2 of any history of Strathmore Football Club. Chris touches every chapter from 1 thru to I expect quite a while into the future as so many of the key people there will continue to see things as Chris would have seen them.

Their cousin, Ian McGain was one of my closer class mates across much of our time as members of the second intake at Strathmore High School. While Ian's father Syd had founded the footy club a few years earlier and given it the core principles which have stood it in good stead to this day, my first tentative steps to what would eventually become an all-consuming involvement began somewhat obscurely when I spent a school vacation towards the end of my time there following around a junior representative team which included some players from our school plus Chris Wheeler and his close mate Greg Park who went to other local schools. In those days things weren't as organised as they have since become and I only had to turn up to be roped into a most unlikely role as runner. In the wash up, though I was a year too old to play with them, I also finished up at Strathmore Under 15s training at the paddock with tin shed beside Pascoe Vale Road which was to become Oak Park Sports/Swim Centre.

Chris was just one of those people that once you knew him, you knew him. And they lived in Salisbury Street, across a very different part of Pascoe Vale Road from the then still newish Essendon Swimming Pool, so connections were renewed during the summer. Still long before Paul Kaufman and Greg Marcy locked in my ongoing involvement with the Footy Club, Chris, Greg Park, Phil Robinson and Graeme Marcy became an early part of our long tradition of summer holidays under canvas at Cumberland River. (I really am going to dig out the picture of that foursome someday.) By the time I was getting more deeply involved with the club, the Wheelers had shifted to near the other end of Pascoe Vale Road where they were to host some memorable celebrations. I was still Paul Kaufman's taxi and confidant when he met the girl next door at one of those parties who went on to become his wife Christine.

Rather than try to rewrite history yet again, for the next key episode I should just quote what I first wrote 20 years ago concerning the second season of what was about to become Strathmore Cricket Club:

Tony Wheeler and Darrell Lynch were initially appointed to lead the “C” Grade team, but after the first game clashing with their football end of season trip and us forfeiting our “D(1)” match we decided to try to put the footballers’ team back together in “D(1)” under Wheeler and Lynch’s leadership with a couple of other line up changes. However we had not anticipated the rub off effects from a dismal relegation year in “A” Grade football, even when Wheeler and Lynch were starting to look like a fairly formidable bowling combination.
Then in round 3 against St. Francis de Sales things turned sensational.
St. Francis were routed for 36 in the first innings and then Lynch took 9/50 while failing to prevent their veteran (later umpire) Frank McDonough batting them to a position to snatch back outright points. Unfortunately the independent umpire officiating gave seven Strathmore “D(1)” batsmen out lbw, and when it happened to Chris Wheeler for the second time he spat the dummy and knocked his stumps out of the ground with his bat. Rather than go through an Association investigation, Chris retired and the football side broke up, Tony Wheeler and Lynch fortunately agreeing to return to their original positions with a “C” Grade side that was then made up largely of players straight out of Under 16.

From there, Chris' involvement with the Football Club was all up hill, or maybe up mountain, including a long stretch as president and a short return to that position when it needed to be filled unexpectedly.

Back in the formative days of the club, ex-Essendon winger Alby Murdoch was recruited to coach our Under 17s and Chris was his captain. More than four decades on, the Alby and Chris team continued to play a legendary role in Strathmore's "A" Grade football efforts. None will miss him more than Alby.

My mother founded Donex Ladies Cricket Club for which I was their mascot long before I can remember. The mostly one team club managed to survive 58 years. A few years after they stopped playing, they held a reunion to officially recognise their 60 years which I attended, as I had their 50th. Long time family friend and Donex teammate of my mother and aunt, Lois West, was one of the speakers that night as she was to be at both my mother's and my aunt's funerals last year. But Lois had brought a close friend with her, Gloria Wheeler, who I spend much of the night catching up with once we started remembering all the connections. (Another very close friend of my mother and co-founder of Donex, Norma nee Stephens was the aunt of long serving Cricket Club senior Captain-Coach and later Secretary Bruce).

There has to be a real problem for me to call Netspace tech support, but once when I did I received some quality support from somebody only identified at the time as Nick, but who Joe told me, when I asked him to pass on my appreciation, was Nick Wheeler, Chris and Ramona's grown son who I had only seen once or twice as a youngster when he managed to bypass footy for swimming.

There are no few words with which to try to sum up Chris Wheeler's contribution to Strathmore Football Club. None have played a greater role in building the club's admirable traditions.