Former Gloucestershire and Kent batsman Simon Hinks played in a golden age of county cricket.

It was an age when there was no IPL, no Big Bash and no T20 Blast – in fact, the only scheduled 20 overs games in those days were organised by club cricketers looking for an excuse to have a midweek beer or two!

But what made the first class era that Hinks played in such a standout period was the high quality of players that could be found in pretty much every county cricket team across the land.

There were West Indies greats Malcolm Marshall and Gordon Greenidge at Hampshire, Viv Richards and Joel Garner at Somerset and¬ Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux at Sussex to name just a few.

Throw in a few of the England players around when Hinks was playing in the 80s and early 90s – Botham, Lamb and Gower – and it’s easy to see why the books belonging to autograph hunters around this time were always overflowing.

There were superstars everywhere you looked and it was against the aforementioned Marshall that Hinks was handed his first-class debut by Kent in 1982 at the age of 21.

So how did he get on?

“Not very well in the first innings but I hit the winning run in the second innings,” he recalled. “I think I was two not out. It was quite an interesting baptism! The game was pretty much Malcolm Marshall v Derek Underwood.”

Left-arm spinner Underwood, of course, is one of the greats of Kent and England cricket, along with wicketkeeper Alan Knott, and both were still playing when Hinks was breaking into the county side.

“It was a great honour to play in the same side as Deadly and Knotty,” said Hinks, now 57. “They were outstanding players and had such a great knowledge about the game. It was impossible not to learn from them.”

There were other good players as well at Kent in the early 80s such as Bob Woolmer and Chris Tavare and in those early days it was a battle for the left-handed Hinks to establish himself in the side.

It didn’t help that every attack he came up against had at least one and very often two international fast bowlers, but though it was tough Hinks is glad that he played at the time he did.

“It was a great experience,” he said, “and a privilege even though it was a steep learning curve. It was fairly hairy at times. If you look at county attacks today, very rarely do you see an overseas fast bowler.

“[Mark] Wood or [Jake] Ball may test you but it’s very different today.”

And while Wood and Ball are very much part of England’s present, it was a former England fast bowler who gave Hinks his most uncomfortable moment on a cricket field when he was batting without a full-grilled helmet.

“I took one full in the face from Devon Malcolm,” he said. “I needed 14 stitches in my lip and I was out for two weeks. Fortunately my nose was okay and I didn’t lose any teeth; I think my moustache saved me there!”

They were blood and thunder days and while Hinks, an attacking opening batsman back in the day, reckons he may well have been suited to T20 cricket – or “swish, bang, hit cricket” as he calls it – he wouldn’t have wished to have played in any other era.

He enjoyed plenty of success too, scoring well over 8,500 runs in first class cricket in more than 180 games and 11 times reached three figures, with a highest of 234 against Middlesex in 1990, the year when he made 1,500 runs.

And he enjoyed some good times in the one-day game as well, reaching the final of the 1986 Benson and Hedges Cup final for Kent against Middlesex at Lord’s.

It was a low-scoring game that Middlesex went on to win by two runs and Hinks recalled: “They were a strong side, they were the team to beat.

“I didn’t get many, I got trapped LBW by Norman Cowans – after I’d survived Wayne Daniel!”

It’s fair to say that Kent weren’t quite as strong in the 80s as they were in the trophy-laden days of the 70s but they still boasted some very good players – Graham Dilley, Richard Ellison, Terry Alderman and John Shepherd chief among them.

They also had the Cowdreys – Chris and Graham – Mark Benson and Alan Igglesden.

By 1985 Hinks had pretty much established himself in the side – it was the year he was awarded his county cap – and he three times went past 1,000 runs for a season for his home county.

The highlight was that career-best score against Middlesex in 1990. “That was a good day and a half,” he said, “Mind you, Gatting and Ramprakash played very well in their second innings and we nearly lost the game.”

Strangely when you consider what a good year he had in 1990, Hinks didn’t feature for Kent nearly so much in the following season and a parting of the ways was on the cards as up-and-comers like Trevor Ward were given their chance.

Fortunately for Hinks, who wanted to stay in the first class game, his departure was announced at the time that Gloucestershire were playing Kent in Canterbury.

“I got a call from Eddie Barlow and Tony Wright who were the coach and captain at Gloucestershire at the time,” said Hinks. “They said they were keen to sign me.

“There were one or two other counties who were interested but I decided to join Gloucestershire.”

And although he didn’t have the success he would have liked at his new county where he spent three years before retiring in 1994 – his first year was disrupted by a cartilage injury – swapping a county famous for its hops for one where cider is king certainly hit the spot in many ways because he has lived in this part of the world ever since making the move in the early 90s.

And he has fond memories of his time with Gloucestershire even though it was not the most successful period in the county’s history.

“It was fairly obvious that we were reliant on Courtney Walsh with the ball in his hand,” Hinks said. “The big shame was that Syd Lawrence had that horrible knee injury just before I joined the club.

“I’d have loved to have played with him. Having faced him I’d have loved to have fielded 30 yards back at slip at Cheltenham College to him and Courtney bowling together.”

But while he didn’t get to play with Lawrence he certainly got to play alongside another Gloucestershire great, Jack Russell.

“He was like a second Knotty,” said Hinks. “He was almost a carbon copy of Alan Knott. He was a world class cricketer.”

Hinks had a decent one-day season in 1993 for his adopted county but he admits that he found it tough in the closing years of his career after having such a strong season in 1990 and then finding himself on the sidelines at Kent.

“It took me too long to regain my confidence,” he said. “So much of sport is mental.”

And it is the importance of the mental side of the game that Hinks is so keen to impress on the players at Gloucester City Winget, where he is now coach.

Coaching is not something that is new to Hinks.

In fact he was coaching as a very young man in the days when he was still trying to establish himself as a player in county cricket.

“I coached for three years in Tasmania from 1983 to 1986,” said Hinks. “I also coached in Johannesburg when I was at Kent.”

He went back to South Africa – and Cape Town in particular – to coach during his time with Gloucestershire, so it is something that has been close to his heart for many years.

In fact cricket is very close to his heart and talk to him for half-an-hour or so and it’s clear he is as much in love with the game today as he was as a young boy learning the game in the 1960s.

After retiring from the first class game in 1994 just short of his 34th birthday – “It was the right decision,” he said – he landed a job with the University of Bristol working as a fundraiser for a sporting project.

“The initial target was £5 million and it went up to £8 million,” said Hinks, who worked on the project – a new indoor sports centre – for five years.

It’s not difficult to imagine that Hinks was very good at fundraising – he talks easily and is happy to engage on any given topic.

“The building was completed soon after 2000,” said Hinks, “and I got invited to become deputy director of sport.”

Part of his remit was to coach the university’s cricket team – a job he loved – although he had remained very much in touch with the country’s number one summer sport because he had played and coached Stroud for four years after leaving Gloucestershire.

He knew what he was doing, of course, and he took on the role of director of sport at the university in 2009 – a position he held for five years.

“I ended up running the facility that I helped fundraise to have built,” he said.

These days he coaches three other clubs apart from Gloucester – Thornbury, Old Down and Rockhampton Juniors – and is also head coach at the Bristol Academy of Sport at South Gloucestershire and Stroud.

It is a role previously held by ex-Gloucestershire star Tim Hancock and in recent years the college – which used to be Filton College – has produced some very good players who have gone on to play for Gloucestershire, namely Chris Dent, Craig Miles, James Bracey and George Drissell.

Fortunately for Gloucester City Winget’s players it’s a part-time role so he has plenty of time for them as they look to launch a promotion challenge in the Gloucestershire Division of the West of England League.

And although he had only been involved with them for a few weeks when he spoke to The Local Answer, Hinks’ initial impressions are very good.

“They are obviously changing things quite dramatically,” said Hinks, “but there’s a real buzz about the place. All the players are really up for it and they worked really hard in pre-season.

“There is a hard core of players who have played with each other for quite a while.

“I’ll be with them every Thursday, plus Saturdays when I’m wanted. The captain Tom Collinson is keen to have my input.

“They’ve got some good youngsters at the club who they are keen to develop.”

And if anyone is going to help develop those youngsters – and improve the 1st XI – then with all the experience he’s got it surely has to be Simon Hinks.