It’s become more and more apparent over the past 20 years or so that you don’t need to have been a good player to be a good manager.

Think Fergie, Mourinho, Klopp, Wenger – top managers all of them but by no stretch of the imagination could any of them be considered top players.

The same applies on the administrative side. Certainly that’s the case with Roger Burden, the man who has done so much for football for 50-plus years in Gloucestershire and nationally as well.

Now 72, Burden is still chairman of the Gloucestershire Football Association and is a former vice-chairman of the Football Association as well as serving as acting chairman of the FA for nine months from May 2010.

“I was never the best player,” admitted Burden, who lives in Cheltenham and is a big Cheltenham Town fan. “When I was nine or 10 there weren’t the youth leagues that there are today.

“I played a bit of school football and that was it when I was growing up.”

And ‘a bit’ is about right for the former pupil at Cheltenham Technical High School – now Bournside School – as Burden explains.

“I had the distinction of playing in the school’s last competitive game of football for many years,” he said, before adding with a laugh, “probably because I wasn’t good enough!”

Burden is being a little harsh on himself because he played in goal and the team won 3-1 at Burford.

“I think I was about 14 or 15 when I played in that game,” continued Burden. “The PE teacher at the time wanted to play rugby so we stopped playing football against other schools. The school played house football matches but that was it, I think I was hiding my light under a bushel!”

Rugby certainly wasn’t Burden’s game and when he left school he was determined to cash in on his first love which of course was football.

“I worked for a local bank and they had a football team which were called Cheltenham Banks,” explained Burden. “They played in The Gloucester Sunday League – there was no Cheltenham Sunday League back then – and I played for them.”

By now Burden had put his goalkeeping gloves well away – “I never really enjoyed playing in goal,” he said – and was playing as an outside right.

And he was content to play just on Sunday mornings because it meant he could watch his beloved Cheltenham Town play on Saturday afternoons.

“I played for Cheltenham Banks for quite a few seasons, from 1963 to 1967,” said Burden. “Then when I left the bank to work for the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society in 1969, I got involved with them.”

But Burden’s football playing career came to a premature end in his early 20s when he sustained a bad knee injury.

“I did my cartilage,” he explained. “In those days it was a major operation – it’s not like today – and I chose not to have it done.”

Burden was keen to remain involved, however, so he took on the role of secretary of the C&G’s football team.

Except the team weren’t known as the C&G.

“We played in the Cheltenham Sunday League and were known as The Spartans,” Burden said. “The building society didn’t agree with football being played on Sundays in those days for religious reasons so we didn’t carry their name.”

Which from a marketing point of view was not necessarily the best move because The Spartans started to win quite a few trophies.

“Dave Lewis, who broke just about every goalscoring record for Cheltenham Town, played for us,” continued Burden, “he used to score goals for fun.”

And Burden was having fun doing his bit behind the scenes – “I was secretary for them for many years,” he said – but his prowess as an organiser had been spotted by others and it wasn’t long before he began climbing the football administrative ladder.

“Every local league could nominate a representative to go on the Gloucestershire FA council,” Burden said, “and I got nominated in 1983.”

And that was when he “started to get more interested”.

“Once I was on the Gloucestershire FA council, somebody decided I might be able to make a contribution in other areas and I joined the Board of the Gloucestershire FA in the 1990s as vice-chairman,” continued Burden.

And it all went from there. The chairman of the Gloucestershire FA – Chris Wilcox – also happened to be vice-chairman of the FA and Burden said that Wilcox “was doing some succession planning”.

And he couldn’t have chosen a much better man than Roger Burden who, whether he was operating in Gloucestershire or nationally, always put and continues to put football and the good of the game above all else.

That was confirmed, if indeed it ever needed to be, when he withdrew his application for the permanent role of FA chairman back in 2010 because he was not prepared to work with FIFA after the way some of their members had acted during England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

Burden joined the Board of the FA in the early noughties before taking on the roles of acting chairman and vice-chairman of the FA, two of the most important positions in the game.

He served in a good number of other roles as well, although he admitted that being on the Board of the FA “was quite an onerous task”, so much so that he retired from C&G at the age of 57 – he was managing director having started as a trainee programmer some 34 years earlier – so that he could concentrate on his work in football.

He never took a salary while at the FA, however, although he was given an allowance.

“The only time I was offered a salary was when I was acting chairman of the FA,” said Burden, “but I didn’t want the job. I was vice-chairman for several years but I had to give that up when I retired from the FA board at the age of 70, that was the FA’s retirement age for directors.

“I’m now a vice-president of the FA which is more of an honorary position.”

And he still chairs the judicial panel, which is basically the disciplinary committee, and has been chairman of the GFA since 2002.

The GFA remains very, very important to Burden. Ask him if he considers himself first and foremost to be a GFA man or an FA man and it’s obvious that home is where the heart is.

“I am a Cheltenham lad,” he said, adding that he’s always proud to wear his GFA anorak. “I never forget that it’s through the Cheltenham Sunday League and the Gloucestershire FA that I’ve got to where I am.

“In all my roles at the FA I always wore my Gloucestershire hat.”

And while that is clearly true, he was involved in several very big decisions that helped shape football in this country for a number of years.

“I wasn’t involved in the choice of managers,” he laughed, “you can’t blame me for that! But I was on the selection committees that appointed the FA chairmen – Lord Triesman, Greg Dyke and the current chairman Greg Clarke.”

All three have their supporters of course, including Burden, who was FA vice-chairman from 2011 to 2016.

So what is Burden’s vision for the beautiful game?

“I want as many people as possible to play football in a safe environment,” he said. “And for those who are aren’t good at it – and I include myself – I want them to be able to find a role, whether it be through refereeing, coaching or on the administrative side.

“I took up refereeing when I was 27. I did it for a few years and I enjoyed it. We’re much better at encouraging young refs to progress today but I’d like to see more girls taking up refereeing.

“It’s the same with coaching, we encourage all young coaches to go on courses.

“It’s all about participation, you don’t have to be kicking a ball to be involved. I was secretary of a football club for years and had an amazing time.”

Even after all these years, Burden’s favourite time of the week is when he’s at a football match on a Saturday afternoon.

He still watches Cheltenham Town, although not as often as he used to.

“I’ve been going to Cheltenham since I was eight,” he said. “I remember going off to places like Moor Green in the Southern League. We used to go to all those games.

“We’ve had some great days, I’ll never forget the night when we got in the Football League.”

But while he’s a big supporter of Cheltenham Town, he’s just as big a supporter of the game of football itself.

So how does he want his role in football to be remembered?

“I think I’ve done something to help put Gloucestershire football on the map,” he said. “The GFA is well thought of in the FA and I like to think I have contributed to the well-being and long-term future of the game of football.”

He has certainly done that, and his contribution has been widely recognised by others as well because the University of Gloucestershire awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his contribution to football and financial services both locally and nationally.

It’s something he is very proud of and something that is richly deserved.