There are not many people who can claim they have played rugby for Saudi Arabia – but Bob Ellis can.

The lifelong Smiths servant grabbed the opportunity with both hands to play for the wonderfully named Saudi Oil Blacks during a spell working in the Middle East in the 1970s.

It is just one of the many highlights of a rugby life that has taken Bob the length and breadth of the country and beyond.

Just as pleasing for Bob is that his love of the sport rubbed off on his older son Jasper, who followed in his dad’s footsteps by playing for Smiths before his work took him away from the area where he played for, among others, Camberley in Surrey.

Bob, 73 in May and a born story-teller, told the Local Answer: “Jasper started playing rugby at an earlier age than me. He’d watched me play at Smiths since he was in nappies.

“He was at Cheltenham Grammar School – I was very proud of him because he was the first pupil from Monkscroft to get to the grammar school – and like me he started on the wing.

“He was very fit and very dedicated and played in the same team as Rob Nock who went on to play international badminton and is now a coach at Smiths.

“Jasper was in all the school teams but when he was 16 there was a bit of a row because he wanted to play for Smiths and the school wanted him to play for them. He played for Smiths.

“I played with him a couple of times but I was on the way down by then – I think I was in the 3rds – and he was in the 1sts.”

While Jasper was given an early grounding in the sport, Bob had to wait until he was 18 before first gripping the oval ball in anger.

Born and bred in Cheltenham, Bob attended Naunton Park Primary School even though he lived in Rowanfield.

His time at the school was affected by a serious bout of whooping cough at the age of six – “it was very, very bad,” he said – and it left him with serious problems with his eyes.

“All I could do was squint,” he remembers, “I used to have to wear glasses with dark patches on them which made me a figure of fun and derision.

“The one thing I could do, though, was run. I was very quick. I remember having a race with one of the quickest kids in the school, Phil Farmer. He went on play rugby for Cheltenham and Cheltenham North but I beat him in the race.”

Another claim to fame was that he was mates with Mike Summerbee, who went on to play football for Manchester City and England.

“He was a year older than me but we caught the bus together to school,” Bob remembers. “He was my protecter. He was the king at our school and I didn’t have any trouble once I was mates with him.”

Bob moved on to the Technical High School in Gloucester Road and although his eyes still bothered him, his ability to run had not gone away.

That came in handy when he became an apprentice at Dowty and he was invited to join the company rugby team where he played on the wing alongside the likes of Gordon Selwyn and Dougie Harwood.

A year of football with Rowanfield United – “I was too clumsy and kept knocking people over” – was followed by a return to rugby and the start of a love affair with Smiths Rugby Club which continues to this day.

Although he’s had spells away while in the Royal Navy, the merchant navy and through his work as an engineer, the club has always remained close to him.

One of those spells away saw him play for five years for Wigston Old Boys in Leicester, the club that launched England World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson on his rugby journey.

They are now known as Leicester Lions and Bob has since met Johnson in a bar in Rome during the 2000 inaugural Six Nations when Bob took the chance to talk about their rugby connection.

“All the England players were in the same bar as us. Johnson was dressed in black tie and I remember he was eating ice cream when I got him to sign the match programme,” Bob said.

His chance to play for Saudi Arabia came through working as a contracts engineer.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I got the job,” he chuckled, “but I took my boots just in case. There was only one team in Saudi and they played in Dharan.

“We played in the Gulf League and played against the likes of Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, Sharjah and Oman.

“We’d play in temperatures of 100 degrees and the pitches were just rolled sand. We had to wear shin pads, shoulder pads and neck pads because the sand was so hard.

“We used to mark the pitches with oily sand – there was no shortage of oil and it was all free.

“I remember opening the barrel one day and there was a scorpion inside. It scared the life out of me and I ran 500 yards. I’ve never been so frightened. Someone else did the pitch that day.”

By now Bob, in his mid-30s, had moved to hooker after a spell at openside – “I started on the wing and slowly moved in,” he said. He also helped his team win the Bahrain 7s, something of which he is rightly proud.

Back to the Smiths and Bob, who is married to Val with whom he has a second son Joseph, has fond memories of playing under captain Graham Evans and with the likes of Alan Vine and Roy Hughes.

He had a spell as captain of the club in the late 1970s but considers his best time as a player was when he was an openside in the early 70s. “I was famously always offside,” he joked, “but I was so fast no one caught me.”

While Jasper’s career has seen him work for the NHS all over the south east – “he got a good degree in biology and bio-chemistry at Leicester,” says proud dad – it has also impacted on his rugby life.

“He used to work a lot of Saturdays,” says Bob. “He’s 45 now and does a lot of hard man marathons. He’s a bit of a gym freak.”

Bob, meanwhile, who looks a lot younger than his 72 years – “my hair’s okay, my teeth are okay but my lungs are messed up” – has continued to serve Smiths with great diligence and bucketfuls of good humour.

“I was chairman of the club for 14 years and since then I’ve been president,” said Bob.

He’s also served the Cheltenham Combination for 50 years “on and off” and is their current president having taken over from Keith Plain.

It’s not all been rugby for Bob. He also played cricket for Prestbury for 20 years from 1973, describing himself as “a medium-paced bowler with a bit of cunning, a bit of style, a bit of bounce and a bit of swing.”

That “cunning” earned him 50 wickets in the 1982 season when he was voted the club’s player of the year.

But it is for his rugby that he is best known. “It’s my passion,” he explained. “I was never the greatest player but I was dedicated and it was my release from everything.

“The comradeship never goes away. I’ve got friends in every club in the town. I’m an old man now but rugby has been a great joy to me.”