Vernon Chappell is a very good golfer. You certainly don’t become captain of Gloucestershire’s seniors team if you can’t navigate your way round a golf course.

And that is something that the 59-year-old member of Cotswold Edge clearly is pretty expert at because he plays off three.

He’s won a host of tournaments over the years as well, including being crowned national seniors champion in 2016 and 2017.

“I went for the hat-trick this year,” he said, “but my knee locked up when I was playing.”

So did he retire?

“No way,” he said. “I got round. You never give up but I just couldn’t win.”

Clearly Chappell is very competitive and golf has been a big part of his life for many years now although it hasn’t always been his number one sport.

“I started playing golf when I was 11,” he said. “I used to play at Chipping Sodbury on the common course, it isn’t there now. A lot of us used to play and we were all taught by Stan Wissun. He was the only person who ever taught me.

“He wasn’t a pro, he was a builder but he was brilliant.”

And Chappell was a quick learner – “People used to say I was good,” he said – but at the age of 16 golf, by his own admission, became secondary in his life.

“My passion was motorbikes,” he said. “I used to race sidecars with my best mate Ross Bezar. It was sidecar motocross and I used to drive, it was brilliant.

“We competed in the first ever beach race at Weston-super-Mare. That was in 1983 and there must have been 500 bikes.”

So how did they get on?

“We were going very well and were second on the last lap,” he said, before adding with a laugh, “that’s when I decided to spray the crowd with sand. We went sideways and the tyre came off the back. We had to push the bike all the way to finish line, it was great laugh!”

Chappell is clearly someone who enjoys life and he’s certainly easy to interview.

“We used to race in the British championships,” he continued. “We were two lads who had a passion for it and you could say we got the hang of it. We used to think we were doing very well if we finished in the top 10 or 15, we certainly punched above our weight.”

They used to compete on a 920 Norton Commando, so how fast did they go?

“We never had a speedo on it,” laughed Chappell. “I’ve no idea, it was pretty fast down the straight! I just turned the throttle and it went. I expect we were doing 65mph flat out on rough terrain.”

It’s clearly not a sport for the faint-hearted and as you’d expect Chappell had his fair share of injuries.

“I broke my coccyx and fractured my right ankle,” he said. “I also pulled my thumb out of its socket. We were young and foolish. We travelled all over the country and I had seven years of doing it every week even though we always knew there was a risk of injury because of the nature of the sport.”

Chappell packed up the racing in his mid-30s and it was driving of a different kind – one that involved clubs such as a three-wood – that became central to his life once more.

“I’d still been playing golf but it really kicked back in when my son Ben was nine,” he said. “I took him down to Canons Court in Wotton-under-Edge. It was a 9-hole course although it’s not there anymore.”

But Ben’s love of golf certainly is. Now 24, he is a five-handicapper so he’s not too far behind Dad while Chappell’s two daughters Jodie and Kacey are also pretty decent golfers too .

“It didn’t take me long to get back into it,” recalls Chappell, who lives in Hawkesbury Upton. “I put a lot of effort in to get the handicap down.”

He joined Cotswold Edge Golf Club some 14 years ago and he is a big fan of the club that was founded in 1980.

“It’s a very tricky course,” he said. “It’s extremely tough. The front nine is fairly open, it’s exposed to the wind. The back nine goes down into the valley, it’s very tight with loads of hazards.

“I always say if you can get round Cotswold Edge you can get round anywhere, it’s a tough little track.”

Chappell was the club’s junior organiser for six years and he certainly isn’t ruling out being captain of Cotswold Edge at some stage in the future.

“It’s something that everybody expects me to do,” he said.

And if and when he takes on the role it’s a fair bet that he’ll do an excellent job.

He has certainly enjoyed success as Gloucestershire’s seniors captain because the county qualified for the English Seniors County finals in Northumberland against Warwickshire, Sussex and Yorkshire.

They finished fourth but that was still some achievement for a county of Gloucestershire’s size.

“We’ve got some very good golfers,” added Chappell. “They are all between four and scratch. They are all very experienced and are all sportspeople, they’re very competitive.”

Chappell’s competitive spirit certainly shone through when he won the county seniors championship at first The Players Club and then the Kendleshire.

That first year – 2016 – was a particularly special year for Chappell.

“I completed the hat-trick,” he said with pride. “I won the county seniors scratch shield and the club championship as well as the county seniors championship.”

He’s won the club championship a couple of times as well as the club’s knockout – “It’s always nice to knock the young one out,” he chuckled – and clearly has plenty more golf left in him.

One of his favourite tournaments is one that he launched with his mates in the late 1980s.

“It’s the Hawkesbury Upton Golf Society tournament,” he said. “It takes place on the second Saturday in August. We get about 70 people taking part and next year will be its 30th anniversary.

“We started it just for the crack to give people the chance to have a knock. It takes place at The Players Club and we’ve raised quite a lot of money for charity although we set out to do that.”

It’s a tournament that Chappell has won in the past “many moons ago” and it’s also the only time of the year that his wife Jackie plays.

Fortunately for Chappell, because the tournament is played on a Saturday he doesn’t have to take a day off from work but as he admits that is not usually the case.

“I get 27 days’ holiday a year and every day I take off is to play golf,” admitted Chappell, who played football until he was 40.

And how does that go down with Jackie?

“I’m not always her favourite person,” he laughed, “but I’ve always played sport, she knows what I’m like. I think she understands!”