Chris Coley has been a major player on the sporting scene in Gloucestershire for many decades.

Brimful with ideas, energy and personality, his marketing skills helped shape iconic sporting events such as the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival and the Cheltenham Cricket Festival into the major attractions that they are today.

And it’s not just off the field that he has had a major impact because he was a more than decent sportsman back in the day. He also owns a string of racehorses and has had a good number of sports books published over the years.

So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that someone who has achieved so much was once described as a “soporific hedgehog”.

And it wasn’t just anybody who used those words about him, it was one of the major institutions in this country – The Times newspaper – who described him thus in a golden era for the print industry when people relied on the written word for much of their news and current affairs.

It’s a story that former Cheltenham College pupil Coley, now 73, is happy to tell.

“It was in the days when there used to be a Public Schools’ Cricket Week every year at Lord’s,” he said. “Cheltenham College were playing Haileybury College in a two-day game and The Times reported on it as though it were a county match.

“I opened the batting and made 30-odd. It took me a long, long time, it was slow, slow, slow, which is why I was described as a ‘soporifc hedgehog’ by, I think, E M Wellings.”

Coley is laughing when he tells the story – the second day of the game was rained off – but don’t for one minute be under the mistaken impression that he was an average sportsman, far from it.

Born in Solihull just weeks before the end of the Second World War, he inherited his dad Jerry’s natural talent for sport.

“He was a good golfer and played off scratch,” said Coley. “He was an assistant golf pro before we moved to Gloucestershire in 1951.”

So what was it that brought dad, mum Betty and their boys Chris and Ian to this part of the world?

“The Highwayman pub between Birdlip and Cirencester,” said Coley. “When my parents bought it there was one tiny little room, it was a tiny cottage.”

It didn’t stay like that for too long, however.

“They turned it into the first ever steakhouse in this country,” continued Coley. “The steaks were served on a platter and the customer chose the cut that he or she would like. It was in the days before Berni Inns and it absolutely took off, mega.”

Watching his parents grow their business – literally in front of his very eyes – obviously had a profound impact on Coley in later life, even though his early years as a boarder at St Chad’s School in Prestatyn, North Wales, meant he was away from home for lengthy periods.

Fortunately for the cricket-loving Coley, the Cheltenham Cricket Festival took place during the school holidays, and he was a regular at the Cheltenham College ground whenever the Gloucestershire heroes of yesteryear such as Jack Crapp, George Emmett and Tom Graveney were in town.

And it soon got even better for Coley because at the age of 13 his parents decided to send him to Cheltenham College.

“I was very lucky,” he said, “I was a day boy and used to catch the bus from The Highwayman to school.”

And the sports-mad Coley flourished at what continues to be one of the top schools in the country.

“I played cricket, rugby and hockey,” he said. “I was in the 1st team for two or three years in each sport and was captain of cricket.

“I was in the hockey 1st XI for three years and I was pretty flexible because I played right-half one year, centre-forward another and goalkeeper another!”

And that wasn’t all.

“I was also captain of boxing,” he added. “I’d have been about 12 stone-ish in those days so I’d have been a light heavyweight or a cruiserweight.”

However, his boxing career came to a sudden and painful end.

“I had my nose broken by a guy from Radley,” he recalled, “that put me off for life! Funnily enough I met the guy again when we were much older at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

“He was working as a courier for Horse Racing Abroad which was one of my businesses.”

But while boxing was no longer of interest to the teenaged Coley, life certainly was, even though he freely admits that when it was time to leave school he hadn’t got a clue what he was going to do.

“I didn’t go to university,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t in those days, only the really bright ones.”

So Coley went back to North Wales to teach for a year at his old school before returning home and landing a job as an executive officer at GCHQ.

That didn’t work out – “I hated every minute,” he admitted – so he went back to teaching.

This time it was much closer to home – at Stouts Hill just outside Uley – where he spent nine years teaching English up until 1977.

It was a job he loved and among his former pupils was a certain Stephen Fry, the comedian, writer, actor and presenter, who, in his autobiography Moab Is My Washtub, credits Coley for developing his love of all things poetry.

“I still see him occasionally and he still calls me ‘sir’,” added Coley, “he’s a Gloucestershire cricket supporter.”

Coley also refereed school rugby matches during his time at Stouts Hill, something he continued to do at Cheltenham College long after he had left the teaching profession in the late 1970s.

Leaving Stouts Hill coincided with him getting divorced, and not for the first time in his adult life he said that he didn’t know what he was going to do.

Incredibly for someone who has been so successful over the years he admitted “that for a year and a half I did nothing”, before Pete Bateman very kindly offered him a job at Bateman’s Sports shop in Stroud.

And, in a very roundabout way, that was the start of a journey that in the words of Mike Edwards – himself a very influential figure in Gloucestershire sport for many decades – was to make Coley “one of the most significant men in Cheltenham in sport since the Second World War”.

“I had a chance meeting with Gloucestershire County Cricket Club’s assistant treasurer Alan Vaughan on a pedestrian crossing in Stroud when I was working at Bateman’s Sports,” Coley explained.

“I knew him because I’d played cricket against him at Westbury.

“He said the club’s marketing manager Graham Parker was ill and would I be interested in the job?”

Of course he said ‘yes’ and the rest, as they say is history because he really did re-write the marketing agenda for sport in Gloucestershire.

“I was very lucky because I became marketing manager at a time when sponsorship and corporate hospitality was just taking off,” he said.

That was in the early 80s – he’d taken the job in 1979 – and he added: “Gloucestershire Cricket Club thought I was brilliant.”

And indeed he was. He wasn’t one of those people who simply sat at his desk, answered the telephone and sent out a few letters.

He had a go-to, driven attitude and soon spotted the commercial possibilities, so much so that sponsorship, corporate hospitality and the Coley name went together off the county cricket field like Jack Russell, Courtney Walsh and Syd Lawrence on it.

“My first Cheltenham Cricket Festival was in 1980,” he said. “And I remember in one of those early festivals Andy Stovold was hit on the head from the sixth ball of Tony Merrick’s first over of the match against Warwickshire.

“It was in the days before helmets and he was carried off. Gloucestershire were 20-0 at the time because Stov had hit the first five balls for four!”

And Coley has other Festival memories.

“I remember Mike Procter winning a game against Middlesex,” he continued. “Mike Brearley was their captain and they declared, but we’d won before the start of the final 20 overs against an attack that included Vincent van der Bijl.”

Procter, of course, is one of Gloucestershire’s all-time greats and while he was performing miracles on the pitch, Coley was doing pretty much the same off it as the amount of money raised through corporate hospitality and sponsorship went through the roof.

“Working for Gloucestershire kicked me off,” he said. “I went and saw the chairman and said I wanted to set up my own business, hospitality was taking off.

“I asked them politely if they would be a client and luckily they agreed, they paid me a fee of £1,000 a month.”

So Coley set up Sporting Concepts and one of his first steps was to head up to Cheltenham Racecourse where Edward Gillespie was the new manager.

“I asked him if I could put up a marquee at the Festival and he agreed,” said Coley.

That was in 1984 and now, well over 30 years later, the tented village and corporate boxes are a big part of what makes the National Hunt Festival one of the great sporting events in this country.

“It went bananas,” said Coley. “It just grew and grew. More tents, more boxes, more tents, more boxes.”

And it wasn’t just in high profile sports such as cricket and racing that Coley made his mark.

“My brother had a gun shop in Lower High Street in Cheltenham,” said Coley. “So we set up a business which offered corporate clay pigeon shooting in stately homes.

“He had the expertise and I did the marketing. We took it out on the road and it took off, mega, although it was a shame we weren’t able to patent it – we tried our best but failed.

“In 1989 in the real heady days of corporate hospitality we were a circus on the road for 126 days, it was a stroke of genius.”

Ian Coley, who is just under two years Chris’ junior, was a top marksman in his own right.

“He was as good a shot as you’d find,” said his brother. “He was manager or coach of six teams that went to the Olympic Games.”

And what about Chris, what was he like at shooting?

“I’ve only had one shot in my life, I hit the target,” he said very matter-of-factly, “it was too easy! I’d rather have a ball involved.”

And Coley, who lives in the heart of Montpellier in Cheltenham, was certainly having a ball in his business life and that continued deep into the 21st century.

“I ceased at the racecourse three years ago although I was a consultant for two more years,” he said. “And I stopped doing the cricket festival in 2007. I’d done it for 27 years and Gloucestershire took it back in-house.”

That was then, but anyone who was at this year’s cricket festival couldn’t have failed to notice Coley running around the boundary – cajoling, talking and engaging with anyone and everyone.

“I’m coordinating it again,” he said. “I felt it was just beginning to lose a bit of its gloss and it needed a bit of TLC. I’m doing it out of love.”

So what changes did he make?

“We introduced a hub behind the scoreboard where some top names came and gave talks,” he said.

“We had Richard Madley, the IPL auctioneer who was another former pupil of mine at Stouts Hill, Philip Serrell, the auctioneer from Bargain Hunt, and cricketing celebrities including Bob Taylor, the former England wicketkeeper, Jim Cumbes, who played professional cricket and football, and Tim O’Gorman, who is chairman of the ECB’s disciplinary committee. It was very popular.”

And even though Coley is now well into his eighth decade, he plans to be very much involved at next year’s cricket festival as well.

“I’ve got a passion for it,” he said. “I’ve got time on my hands and I’m happy to get stuck in.”

And it’s not just cricket Coley has a passion for because he has been a proud owner of a good number of racehorses for very close on two decades.

So how did he come to be a racehorse owner?

“It was in 1999,” he said. “It was at the time I was refereeing school rugby matches at Cheltenham College when Ian Wright was in charge.

“Peter Scudamore’s two boys – Michael and Tom – were playing. I was talking to Scu during a post-match tea in Martin Stovold’s house and he persuaded me to have a racehorse.”

Scudamore, of course, was one the greatest jump jockeys this country has ever seen and his two boys have done pretty well in the sport as well.

So too has Coley, who, at the time of talking to The Local Answer, had sent out 145 winners.

And his first winner remains very clear in his mind.

“Long Room Lady,” he said. “It was an evening meeting at Uttoxeter. It was the last race of the night – 9pm – and we won after an objection, the result stood.

“Nigel Twiston-Davies was the trainer and Carl Llewellyn the jockey.”

Twiston-Davies and Llewellyn are two of the top names in the sport so that’s not a bad way for anyone to start but what about the name Long Room Lady, where did that come from?

“I try to give a cricketing name to my horses,” explained Coley, “and it was around the time that ladies were allowed in the Long Room at Lord’s for the first time.”

Coley has come a long way since that first winner and now runs the well known Yes No Wait Sorries partnership which he enjoys with a number of his cricketing pals.

Ask him how many horses he currently owns and he’ll say “too many” before adding “eight, one with Nigel Twiston-Davies and seven with Fergal O’Brien”.

Coley is O’Brien’s business partner and he speaks very warmly of the Guiting Power trainer.

“He knows his stuff and I’d be very disappointed if he doesn’t get to the very top,” said Coley.

“He’s been on his own for six years and the dream is to become champion trainer. He finished 10th last year ahead of some top names which is quite something.

“He had 60 winners last season which is his best so far.”

And if he is to kick on and become number one trainer, Coley will obviously have a huge input.

“We’ve got some nice horses,” he said, “Poetic Rhythm won the Persian War at Chepstow and the stable’s first Grade 1 – The Challow at Newbury. He’s a stable star.”

Coley knows what he’s talking about having had “a couple of nice horses” in the past such as Amber Brook and Nudge And Nurdle, and he admits that racing is his major love these days before, almost correcting himself, he adds “but it’s cricket deep down”.

And it’s not difficult to see why cricket remains so close to his heart – he is also a former cricket chairman at Gloucestershire – because as both a batsman and a wicketkeeper he was very, very good.

He played for Colwyn Bay, Cheltenham and Malmesbury, winning the Western League with the last two, and also helped Cheltenham win the National Clubs Knockout at Lord’s against Stockport in 1970.

“I was at the non-striker’s end when we needed six off the last ball to win,” he said. “It was a rank full toss and David Locke hit it into the Tavern, that was special.”

Coley recalls that they were seven wickets down and he certainly played his part in that dramatic win.

“I walked down the wicket before that last ball,” he said. “I deliberately delayed the final delivery, we had a make-believe conversation. Fortunately the Tavern was on the short side.”

And don’t believe for one minute that Coley was happy to be out of the firing line when all the pressure was on Locke.

On the contrary, he’d far rather have been facing that final ball and, it’s fair to say, the one thing Coley has never lacked in any walk of life is confidence.

“I was the sort of bloke you wanted in your cricket team because I was adaptable and could play to a situation,” he said. “I could fight it out if needed or go for it if we needed quick runs.

“Three times I was batting when we needed six from the final ball to win – once in the Western League, once in the Wiltshire League and once in a six-a-side tournament.”

And of course he was successful on each occasion.

“I’m more proud of that than anything,” he said. “I hit them all straight or just to the onside of straight. If the chips were down you’d have wanted me in your team.”

And it was a pretty special Cheltenham team that won the national knockout, with Coley reeling off many of the names as though it were yesterday: “David Brown, Ken Skeen, Colin Dredge, Malcolm Finch, Rich Rutter, John Goode, Selby Mudway, Maurice Adams, Colin Smith, Noel Furley.”

These days Coley is the driving force behind Gloucestershire Gipsies, the nomadic cricket team that play some 60 friendly fixtures a year.

Coley is the club’s secretary – “I make it happen,” he said – and he appoints a manager for every game.

He was present at about half the games last season but 2018 was the first time since he became involved with the club that he didn’t get on the field himself.

Don’t bet against him putting that right next year, but whether he does or doesn’t play Coley remains a huge supporter.

“It’s old-fashioned cricket,” he said. “There are no league points, there are nice lunches and teas, we have a drink afterwards, it’s very friendly and yet competitive, there’s no bad behaviour – it’s going back in time and the aim is to ensure that it will never die.”

The Gipsies play all-day games against schools and other nomadic teams such as Warwickshire Imps and Worcestershire Gents.

“We’re very lucky to play 15 or 16 games at Stowell Park,” added Coley.

The stunning estate is home to Sam Vestey, the 3rd Baron Vestey, who used to play for the Gipsies and who Coley describes as “a most enthusiastic cricketer” when it came to playing this country’s number one summer game.

And while cricket for many is England’s top sport from May to August, few would disagree that football and rugby are the dominant team sports for the remainder of the year.

And the sports-loving Coley, of course, is a big fan of both.

“I played rugby for Cheltenham for three years from 1969 to 1971,” he said with some pride.

“That was in the days when we beat Coventry, beat Ebbw Vale, and beat Bath regularly – the good old days.

“England wing David Duckham was in the Coventry team when they were the top team and I played against Gloucester four times and won two, drew one and lost one.

“My first game was against Wasps at Sudbury and we beat them as well. We won 9-6 and I got the winning drop goal.”

A full-back who could place-kick, Coley’s finest hour came in that win at Ebbw Vale, who in those days were a top, top team and included the likes of British Lion Arthur Lewis in their ranks.

“We took their ground record,” Coley said. “They were unbeaten up till then. They were a good side but we beat them 17-16.

“We got into their half four times and I kicked four penalties.”

What made the win all the more remarkable was that the team coach broke down on the way to the ground.

“I played with Phil Blakeway, Bob Redwood, John Fidler, John Hall,” said Coley, “we put out a proper side.”

But for all his love of rugby, football is very much Coley’s number one winter team sport these days.

He has been a huge supporter of Cheltenham Town both on and off the pitch for more than 20 years now and is still a regular at the club’s home games.

“I started watching them when they were in the Conference,” he said. “I went to the FA Trophy final win at Wembley in 1998 and I was there when Michael Duff’s goal against Yeovil clinched promotion to the Football League a year later.”

Coley also has great memories of cup trips to Fulham and Spurs, but although he is a big football fan it shouldn’t be overlooked that he could play a bit in his younger days as well.

“I played semi-pro for North Prestatyn in the Welsh League, I kept goal,” he said.

“I also played for the Robins reserves although not in goal, I was a centre-forward.

“I wasn’t anywhere near the first team but I must be one of the few people to have played football, cricket and rugby for Cheltenham.”

With the Robins he played alongside the likes of Dave Walker and Billy Sabatella, and asked if he scored many goals for the Robins, Coley replied: “I got very few I should think!”

How many goals Coley actually scored in a Cheltenham Town shirt would make a very good quiz question, and if Coley had an inkling he was going to be asked that you feel sure he’d be able to answer it correctly.

That’s because, in addition to all his other talents, Coley is also a walking encyclopedia when it comes to all sport.

Twice in the 1970s he was a semi-finalist in Brain of Sport – the popular national quiz show hosted by football commentator Peter Jones on BBC Radio.

“I was part of the Old Cryptians team – I played a bit of rugby for them,” Coley said. “Charlie Counsell was our captain.

“My specialist subject was three-day eventing. I didn’t know anything about it but I swotted up about it, no one else had it as their specialist subject!

“We also won a national competition which was sponsored by the Sunday People in the 70s.”

Coley went on to write a good number of quiz books in association with famous sporting names such as Henry Cooper, David Gower and Bryan Robson and he still likes a quiz today.

“I compete in the Cirencester Quiz League for Slad Exiles,” he said. “We meet at the Golden Heart just outside Birdlip. I don’t know about recent events but somehow can still remember all sorts of facts and figures from the 50s and 60s!”

Those who have competed against him may laugh at that last statement, particularly when they hear the question that he considers to be the toughest he has ever answered correctly.

“It was tie-breaker in the quarter-finals of Brain of Sport,” he said. “The question was, ‘Which county batsman has been listed number 11 in his team’s batting order all season even though he once scored a double century?”

And the answer?

“Tom Cartwright,” said Coley.

And as you’d imagine, there’s plenty more to Coley as well. Over the years he’s raced six or seven greyhounds with the pick being Tommy’s Approach, who he has only just retired after he won some 15 Open races.

He’s also a big supporter of The Injured Jockeys Fund, and organises the annual football match between jockeys and ex-Cheltenham Town players which takes place at Whaddon Road in April.

Among those who have taken part are Tony McCoy, Sam Twiston-Davies, Michael Duff and Tony Naylor, and Coley said with considerable pride: “Last year we raised £45,000.”

A remarkable man is Mr Coley, not just for what he has achieved on and off the sporting fields of Gloucestershire and beyond, but also for his all-round knowledge and his willingness to continue to contribute to sport in so many ways today.

So how does he react to Mike Edwards’ quote that he is one of the most significant men in Cheltenham in sport since the Second World War?

“Very flattered,” he said, before adding with a laugh, “but you can’t believe everything Mike Edwards says!”