The Nelmes name has been synonymous with Lydney Rugby Club almost from the day the club were formed in 1888.

Nick Nelmes, the ball playing hooker who could run and pass almost as well as any three-quarter in the 80s, 90s and early noughties, is probably the best known of the lot having played close on 500 games for the club in a 20-year career that didn’t reach its conclusion until 2005.

“The Nelmes name goes back almost to the inception of the club nearly 130 years ago,” Nick, now 51, said with pride.

“There’s a team photo in the clubhouse from our golden jubilee season in the 30s which features my grandfather Albert. And I think there was a Nelmes who captained the club in the early part of the 20th century.”

There certainly was and Nick’s dad Dave, who has been involved with the club for more than half a century himself, can shed more light on his involvement.

“His name was Jim and he was captain in the 1909/10 season,” said Dave. “I think he was my grandfather’s brother.”

That was pretty much the first record of a Nelmes playing for Lydney but since then the family and the club have had closer links than a scrum-half has with his no. 10.

“My dad must have played about 150 games for Lydney before the Second World War,” said Dave. “And all his brothers – Syd, Maurice and Frank – played a bit too.”

Albert, who sadly lost his life when he was working on the construction of the new Severn Bridge in 1962, was a flanker and a pretty good one too.

His son was an outside fly-half and played in all the junior age group teams at Lydney right up to Colts level before going on to play senior rugby for Yorkley and Bream.

Dave returned to Lydney once the young Nick started to get involved in the youth section at Regentsholme and has remained involved ever since.

“I’ve been on the committee for more than 50 years,” he said. “I’ve been treasurer, match secretary, first-team manager.”

And that’s not all.

“Since he’s retired he’s been part of a gang that look after the pitch and do all the odd jobs that need doing at the club,” said Nick. “He’s always at the club doing something. He watches Lydney home and away, he very rarely misses a game.”

And he gets plenty of support from his good lady, Valerie, as well.

“Mum is head of the ladies’ committee,” laughed Nick, who is himself the club secretary. “She does a lot of the organising and cooks the players’ meals.”

And one of the up and coming players enjoying the matchday food is young Alex, Nick’s 17-year-old son.

Unlike dad, he’s steered well clear of the forwards and is showing considerable promise as a fly-half.

“He turned 17 in March and has just started adult rugby,” said dad. “He had a couple of games for the 2nd XV at the end of last season.

“He can play full-back as well but I think he prefers fly-half.”

So how does he compare with dad?

“He’s a bit taller than me,” chuckled Nick, “and he’s going to fill out. He’s got a bit of gas on him and he’s scored a try from 30 yards coming into the line in one of his games. He’s the standard-bearer for the Nelmes family now.”

The transition to senior rugby has not all gone smoothly for Alex, however, because in the first game of this season he sustained a fractured wrist. As it happened, his dad was refereeing in that game and Nick admitted: “He was in a bit of pain.”

So what does qualified referee Nick say to his boy if he gets bundled over on the field?

“I tell him to get up, play on and look after himself,” laughed dad.

Alex has followed the well-trodden path of his dad and grandad by coming through Lydney’s youth set-up.

“He started at under-10s,” said Nick. “I didn’t want to start him too early. He’s at Crypt School now so gets the chance to play plenty of games.”

The young Nick, who was brought up in Bream, spent much of his childhood in and around Regentsholme.

“I used to go to most of the games,” he said. “In those days you would regularly get crowds of 500, 600 or 700 and I’d go to the midweek games as well.”

It wasn’t long before he wanted a piece of the rugby action for himself, however.

“I started in the juniors when I was about 13,” he recalled. “I also played at my school – Whitecross – where John Morris, a former captain of Lydney, was the PE teacher.

“I started off as a scrum-half and I quite enjoyed playing there but I got told that I should play hooker.

“Once I’d made the switch I really enjoyed it. I was in the game all the time at hooker and anyway there were players who were better scrum-halves than me.”

Nick played all the way through the age group teams at Lydney right up to Colts level before making his debut in the 1st XV “at 18 or 19”.

In those early days he only got the occasional game for the club’s flagship team because his path was being blocked by a certain Kevin Dunn, who went on to play for many years for Gloucester.

“You had to wait your turn. I played a couple of seasons of 2nd XV rugby before getting my chance,” said Nick, who has nothing but praise for Dunn.

“I liked Kev, you could see he was a burgeoning talent. I learned a lot from training with him which stood me in good stead throughout my career.”

Nick’s elevation into the 1st XV coincided with “the late lamented Gordon Sargent taking over as the main man at Lydney”.

“He was a major influence on me,” added Nick. “I had a huge amount of respect for him and we were very close friends.”

Nick’s contemporaries in those days included the likes of Adrian Knox – “We went to school together and he lived just down the road from me” – Julian Davis and Robert Mills.

He described Knox as a “class player” and rates Davis as “the best scrum-half to ever have played for Lydney”. He also has nothing but praise for prop Paul Price who he says could have been a hooker.

“We had a relatively successful Colts team before graduating into the senior team,” recalls Nick “We played together for a long time and had quite a lot of success in the 90s.”

Indeed they did, even though it took two or three years for them to finally get promoted to the third tier of league rugby which is today’s National One.

“We yo-yoed for a bit after that but then in 1996 we got back into the third tier and we stayed there for five years,” Nick recalled.

By now Nick had taken over as captain – a position he was to hold for six years until 1998. He worked alongside some good coaches too – Andy Wyman and Rhodri Lewis, the one-time Wales flanker, and together they enjoyed special times at the club.

The most memorable game, of course, came against mighty Saracens in early 1999 in what was then the Tetley’s Bitter Cup in the days when club rugby’s premier domestic knockout cup still mattered.

“Saracens had a helluva team,” remembers Nick. “Francois Pienaar, Kyran Bracken, Tony Diprose, Richard Hill; they all played. They had a couple of pretty rapid Frenchmen as well and they had Paddy Johns.

“It was 14-0 at half-time but we lost pretty handily in the end.”

In fact, they were beaten 40-0 which was no disgrace against a team that would surely give the current all-conquering Saracens team a run for their money.

While the game against Saracens was a showpiece occasion for the club and town, Nick has even fonder memories of the game in the round before when they went to Moseley and won against all odds.

“We had tremendous support that day,” said Nick, “there must have been 300 to 400 Lydney supporters and we managed to hold on at the end, that was some day.

“Back in those days we had a pretty strong team. I always remember John Brain, the old Gloucester second row, saying to me that when he came to Regenstsholme the first thing he saw was the sign saying, ‘Welcome to Lydney’ before adding that Gloucester never got much of a welcome!

“We were a small town team and had to make home advantage count. We had a tight ground and good support and we’d try to use that to our advantage. I was fortunate to play in a team that beat Gloucester and we gave a bloody nose to a Leeds side that included the likes of Phil Davies and Colin Stephens. That was a great day.”

All good things have to come and end at some time of course and in the early noughties the team that had done so much to put Lydney on the rugby map was starting to break up as the advancing years started to take their toll.

“I did a Frank Sinatra after we’d won promotion back up to level three in 2003,” chuckled Nick. “I told Pat Kiely that I could do with knocking it on the head because the next season was obviously going to be difficult.”

But Lydney still need Nick and he was to carry on for a couple more years, playing his last 1st XV game at the age of 40 before making way for Ben Lewis, who had joined the club from Berry Hill.

It ended a remarkable chapter in Lydney’s proud history and even though Nick had opportunities to play at a higher level, he ultimately turned down any offers and stayed loyal to the club that has now been a big part of his life for the best part of 40 years.

“Yes, I could have gone to Bath at one stage,” he admitted. “But it was the same at Bath as it was at Gloucester. If I’d have gone to either club I’d have been stuck on the bench. At Bath, there was Graham Dawe and at Gloucester there was Dunny, John Hawker and then Phil Greening.

“Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to play for a bigger club but in those days, there were no substitutes and I just wanted to play.”

Certainly Nick has no regrets and after taking off his boots for the last time he took a break from the game before popping up as coach of Stroud.

“I did that for a few seasons,” he said. “I knew Russ Hillier from my time playing for Gloucestershire and he’s always been high up at the club.”

Since then Nick has been Lydney’s 1st XV team manager when Nick Bartlett was the coach and these days is assistant 2nd XV team manager to Steve Bacock.

“I’ll do anything I can to help the club,” said Nick.

“His wife, Diana, is also a regular at Regentsholme where she is a keen supporter of young Alex.

So, does Diana enjoy watching Alex play?

“She’s worried the poor little lad is going to get hurt,” laughed Nick.

If young Alex can achieve half the things that his dad managed on the rugby field he’s going to enjoy a stellar career indeed.