Adrian Wakefield was the cornerstone of the Cheltenham North scrum for more than 25 years.

And since hanging up his boots eight years ago, the former tighthead prop, known to everyone as Adge, has continued to be one of the cornerstones of the club off the field.

Team manager and long-serving club stalwart Malcolm Kedward said: “It’s unbelievable what he does. He helps with the juniors, sorts out their fixtures, marks the pitches, looks after the kit, keeps the changing rooms tidy... he does an awful lot of unseen work.

“If he’s not outside mowing the grass and putting the white lines down, he’s in the clubhouse with the hoover. He’s always pushing or dragging something around.”

If Adge had followed in the footsteps of his dad, Gary, it would have been a round ball rather than an oval ball that would have kept him occupied on Saturday afternoons.

Gary’s first love was football, playing in goal for Naunton Park, for whom he would also go on to play cricket. A good sportsman, he was talented enough between the sticks to catch the eye of Cheltenham Town and played a number of games for their reserves.

Adge, however, was never caught by the footballing bug. “I wasn’t built for football,” he said. “I didn’t have the necessary coordination.”

So Adge started playing rugby at Bournside School and pretty soon he was persuaded by Roy ‘Froggy’ Jones and Ron Freebury to go and train with the under-15s at Cheltenham North.

“It all took off from there,” said Adge. “That started a 35-year association with the club and I’ve loved every minute of it.

“In those days the club were running five sides and I started in the 5ths when I was 18 and was in the 1sts when I was 22. I was in the side on and off for 15 years.”

Those early years when Adge broke into the first team were a golden era for the North when they collected cups like Ricky Gervais collects awards.

“We couldn’t seem to do anything other than win Combination Cups,” recalls Adge. “Hopefully those days will return but we had some really good players – Jock Smith, The Randall brothers, Dave and Martin, Rob and Stuart Gourlay, Gareth Francis.

“I was also captain of the second team for six seasons and we won three or four Combination Cups and the Wally Booth Midweek Floodlit Cup.

“In those days it was much easier to captain a side because players wanted to play. You didn’t have to chase up people like you do today.”

Adge is one of life’s good guys, modest too, so when asked to describe his style of play he paused before saying: “I was very robust and athletic.

“I didn’t like trouble but if anything kicked off I would get involved. As a captain I tried to encourage players. We liked to play an open, expansive game, not the stick it up your jumper style of the old North days.”

Adge gives much of the credit for this change in ethos to coaches such as Denis Hargreaves, Kevin Powderly and Paul Morris, who, he said, took North to the next level.

His own playing career ended when he was 42. Although he said his ‘knees were giving way’, personal tragedy determined that he hung up his boots.

“My wife Mandy sadly died when I was 40,” he said. “We’d got two young boys – Nathan and Marcus – and they became my priority.”

Not that Adge cut his ties with the club. He was second team manager for a number of years before taking over as the club’s groundsman, a job done by his dad for many years.

Family is incredibly important to Adge and he is immensely proud that his two boys are both keen rugby players.

Nathan, now 20 and a student in Cardiff, cut his rugby teeth at Cheltenham Tigers in the days before there was an established junior set-up at Cheltenham North.

Adge, a level two coach, coached the team from the under-6s through to the under-17s with Jimmy Connolly, who sadly died recently.

“We won the County Cup eight years in a row,” says Adge proudly.

Nathan, a tighthed prop or hooker, plays for his university team but plays for the North when time allows.

Marcus, 15, is playing for the North’s under-16s. “He’s a prop too,” says Adge, “but he doesn’t want to be a prop, he wants to be a centre.”

Adge, of course, is one of the driving forces behind the increasingly successful junior set-up at the club which covers under-6s through to under-16s. He sorts out the fixtures and is also the coaching coordinator, although he’s not doing much coaching these days.

“I do help out but I try to stay away from coaching if I can,” he said. “That’s because they’ve got me in the kitchen doing the food. We’ve got lots of volunteers but it’s still manic on Sundays doing all the bacon rolls and hot dogs.

“I also clean the changing rooms – although the players have started to do that themselves – and I wash the kit. I do a bit of everything.”

Fortunately for the Stoke Orchard club, Adge, who lives with his partner Clare, is just a stone’s throw from the ground... and he wouldn’t want it any other way.