Hundreds of bikers bid farewell to club founder

HUNDREDS of bikers turned out for the funeral of one of the founding members of a South Wales motorcycle club.

Stephen Douglas Jones – a veteran of the Valley Commandos Motorcycle Club – died of deep vein thrombosis last month, aged 55.

His funeral, which was held in Pontypridd on Tuesday, saw hundreds of bikers follow his Harley-Davidson led procession to pay their respects.

Mr Jones, a big Cardiff City fan from Glyncoch, near Pontypridd, has been remembered as a “very popular bloke”.

Along with a number of other Bluebirds supporters, he started the biking group which now boasts hundreds of members.

Stephen’s brother Nick Jones said: “Stephen was a big bloke, a doorman and a big Cardiff City fan so everybody knew him.

“He was the type of guy who would dress up in a character costume or with ribbons and bobbles in his hair – he was a well known character.

“Every Cardiff fan knew him. He stood out.

“When he died loads of Cardiff fans messaged us to say how sorry they were.”

Tracing the roots of the club, he said: “It started as a group of Cardiff City supporters who all had bikes.

“That’s why they started a biking group – so they could go out and ride together.

“They made sure they had permission from the bigger biker groups and went about it all the right way.

“By today, there’s hundreds of bikers in The Valley Commandos and that’s why there were so many at Stephen’s funeral. They all wanted to pay their respects. There must have been more than around 300 bikes there and the group paid for a HarleyDavidson with a side cart to carry his coffin.

“The roads were packed, so was Glyncoch Social Club – people had to stand outside.”

A number of tributes have also been paid to Mr Jones online.

Writing on Facebook, Alan Trolley said: “The Valley Commandos have my utter respect. Everything they did yesterday was awesome, they gave one of their brothers a tremendous send off, they should be proud of who they are and what they did. Respect to each and every one of them.”

Gina Merry also said: “The coffin on the side of a bike, it was an utterly amazing sight, very respectful, very moving and they should all be very proud of an outstanding send off for the gentleman in question.”

Angela Jones wrote: “Totally amazing respect for another biker brother.”