Rory Ford is 22 and knows his sport.

Nothing too unusual about that, you may say, except that Rory is happy to share his knowledge with anyone who will listen to him.

That’s because for the past eight months or so Rory has been working for a podcast called SpitballingPod, which is the brainchild of Brockworth-based and fellow 20-something Luke Byron.

And when we say ‘working’, Cheltenham born and bred Rory doesn’t get paid, of course ¬– he works for a debt collections agency in the town during the day – which makes what he does in his spare time all the more laudable.

Each week Luke and Rory give their views, together with fellow regulars Connor Harmer and Tom Kennett, on all things sport – whether it be mixed martial arts, football, basketball or whatever – and they also get to interview some of the biggest names.

“We meet up at Luke’s house and we just talk about sport,” Rory explained. “We have an agenda that we follow and then Luke edits it. We preview events and give our views on various issues as well as doing interviews. It takes about six hours for us to then get it up online. We do it for the fun of it.”

And while it is clearly fun, the fab four are certainly making a success of their venture as well.

“In July and August last year it just took off,” said Rory. “We get on average about 5,000 or 6,000 listeners a week – our best is 14,500. In 2017 the cumulative number of listeners was over 100,000.”

Much of those listeners are based in the US and their content is now being aired by American radio station WBLZ. The podcast is big into its mixed martial arts and Rory has spoken to some of the biggest names in the sport – although with a name like Ford you imagine he could just as easily turn his hand to motorsport!

“I’ve interviewed UFC fighters Stephen Thompson and Colby Covington and the podcast has also interviewed David Haye,” said Rory, who studied law at university and wants to be a solicitor.

Rory is clearly a bit of an all-rounder. A former pupil at Christ College and All Saints Academy, he played football in his younger days and also took up karate at Samurai Martial Arts in Springbank, achieving a black belt.

He also wrote website content for a betting firm during his time at university and tipped Danny Willett to win the US Masters in 2016 at odds of 66-1. He knows his stuff because he also tipped Jordan Spieth to win the Open Championship last year at 10-1 – and like Willett the year before he duly obliged.

Rory has a pretty deep knowledge of all things racing as well and ask him which three sporting people, in an ideal world, he’d invite to dinner and one of them is one of the greats of the horse world.

“AP McCoy,” he said. “What a legend.”

And who else would he invite?

“Chael Sonnen,” he said. “He’s an ex-UFC fighter and is a very interesting guy. And I’d invite Jurgen Klopp because I’m a big Liverpool fan.”

Now if Rory ever managed to get those three round a table that really would make some podcast. Over to you, Rory!

The podcast can be found on soundcloud or on iTunes by searching SpitballingPod.