The great Barry Richards will roll back the years when he opens the innings at a special Cheltenham Cricket Society summer meeting on Thursday.

The South African batsman, 72 in the next couple of weeks, will be the guest speaker at the Victory Club in Cheltenham and will have many tales to tell about a career which lasted for the best part of 20 years from the mid-60s to the early 80s.

Richards, whose Test career was restricted to just four matches because of his country’s international ban, was regarded by many connoisseurs of the game as the best batsman of his generation – certainly until his namesake Viv burst onto the world stage in the mid-1970s.

Richards, of course, made his name in this country with Hampshire and was one half of probably the best opening partnership ever seen in county cricket alongside Gordon Greenidge.

However, it was in glorious Gloucestershire that he first strapped on his pads in anger in this country, having been invited by the county – along with fellow South African and soon-to-be Gloucestershire great Mike Procter – to play for the 2nd XI in 1965.

One of the games they played that year was for a Gloucestershire XI against Smiths at The Newlands in Bishop’s Cleeve.

The Smiths side included Roger Thorndale, who made more than 700 appearances for Cheltenham Town Football Club from 1958 to 1976, and John Hyde, whose son Neil is a member of the Cheltenham Cricket Society.

“The game was possibly a trial of the facilities and the pitch at The Newlands as Gloucestershire played the International Cavaliers there in 1966 and 1967,” said Hyde junior.

“However, there was a team photo that shows Bomber Wells in the middle. He retired from first class cricket that year – he was playing for Nottinghamshire then – so maybe it was a benefit match for him rather than some form of trial.”

When overseas players were welcomed into county cricket in 1968 Gloucestershire preferred the dynamic all-round skills of Procter to Richards’ batting genius and such was Procter’s influence on Gloucestershire cricket for the next 13 years that no fan of the club would ever say they made the wrong decision.

Hyde senior, now 93 and living in Cheltenham, was a top all-rounder himself, proving himself proficient in many sports.

Neil takes up the story. “He played rugby for Naunton Park Pre-World War Two as well as football for Leckhampton – they played POWs in the early part of the war,” he said.

“After his brother was killed at Dunkirk, he signed up and served as a Royal Marine attached to the Navy and was at D-Day – he recently received his Legion d’Honneur.

“After demob in 1946 he joined Cheltenham Town Football Club and he scored eight goals in one match against Willersey in a Colts match and was promptly moved into the 1st XI.

“He scored the first goal after five minutes but was knocked out in the process – the game was at Cinderford in the Western League.”

That was to be his only game for Cheltenham and he later went back to Leckhampton, where he also played cricket.

“When we moved to Bishop’s Cleeve in 1955 he had stopped playing football but continued playing cricket with Smiths,” said Neil.

Although he had hung up his football boots sport was still playing a big part in Hyde senior’s life.

“At this time he was at his peak at billiards and snooker,” said Neil. “He was representing Cheltenham at billiards and was the Open billiards champion in the town.”

By now he was also starting to play golf. In 1969, he moved to Poole in Dorset and although he had stopped playing most sports he would still enjoy games of billiards and golf.

Five years after heading south, and at the age of 50, he got a call to play cricket and scored a century in his first game back. That was enough to get him hooked on the sport again and he played for another 10 years before hanging up his spikes for good.

Neil was a bit of a sporting all-rounder himself, just like his dad.

“I played rugby, football, cricket, Eton Fives, golf and squash,” he said. “I was also a keen cyclist and skier. Sport gave me the opportunity to travel and I played rugby in the US, squash in Ireland, golf in Spain and, more unusually, Eton Fives in Switzerland and Germany. I also cycled in Iceland.”

Neil’s dad, meanwhile, eventually returned to live in Cheltenham and continued to play golf and snooker.

He still regularly plays pool at the Charlton Kings Club and Neil laughed: “The youngsters take great pride when they occasionally manage to beat him!”