Mickey Booth had done his homework ahead of his interview with The Local Answer.

 

That’s not too surprising because he obviously did plenty of homework in his younger days as well. You don’t play well over 450 games for Gloucester without knowing something about the players you are coming up against week in, week out.

 

The interview had been arranged through his son Dave – a well-known figure in local rugby circles in Gloucester – and Booth senior, one of the greats of Gloucester rugby back in the day, was certainly prepared for the questions that were put to him.

 

And while the 79-year-old was more than happy to talk about his many achievements over the years, he was also keen to talk about the great game of rugby in more general terms.

 

You see, Booth is something of a rugby connoisseur. 

 

A one-time scrum-half, hanging up his boots at the age of 32 didn’t mean that he was turning his back on a game that had played such a big part in his life.

 

Far from it. He was encouraged to join Gloucester’s committee almost as soon as he had untied his laces for the last time and he went on to coach England’s Under-21s some 25-odd years ago.

 

These days he is a life member at Gloucester and is a regular at Kingsholm alongside his good friend Peter Ford – another Gloucester great. And they go to some away games too, including the recent European Challenge Cup final against Cardiff Blues in Bilbao.

 

Booth’s love of all things Gloucester kicked in at a very early age.

 

“I was born only 50 to 70 yards away from Kingsholm,” he chuckled. “I remember we used to climb over the fence or slip in through the open door when no one was looking! That was a long, long time ago.”

 

That’s boys being boys, of course. Increased security means today’s youngsters are unlikely to get in and see their heroes for free but while Booth admits to chancing his arm on occasion, it’s fair to say that the young Booth would also do anything to help out the club as well.

 

“We’d help put the straw on the ground if there was a frost,” said Booth. “There were no covers in those days and we’d take all the straw off before the game. We used to get a free ticket to games when we did that.”

 

That was back in the the early 50s when Booth was starting to discover that it was just as much fun to play the game as it was to watch it.

 

“As a boy we used to go to a recreation field just up the road,” recalled Booth. “We’d roll up a sack cloth, tie a piece of string round it and use it as a ball. And we’d put coats down for the posts.

 

“I remember coming home one day and I’d lost my best coat – I had to stay in for a long time after that!”

 

And while a coat-less Booth was clearly feeling the cold more than his mates, he was soon to discover that playing rugby for real was enough to warm anyone’s heart.

 

“I went to St Mark’s Infants and Juniors,” he said, “and I passed my 11-plus... I don’t know how!

 

“I went to Tommy Rich’s and they were a rugby school, I thoroughly enjoyed my rugby there.

 

“We had a good team and lost only one game in all my time there. They were wonderful times.”

 

In the very early days Booth played in the centre – “My favourite player was Cardiff’s Bleddyn Williams who played in the centre,” said Booth – but by the time he was 12 he was wearing number 9.

 

“Our teacher Howard Terrington, who used to play for Leicester, told me to play there,” explained Booth.

 

And teacher clearly knew best because it was a position that Booth made his own at whatever level he was playing for the next two decades.

 

That included playing for Gloucester Schools alongside his long-time friend and half-back partner Russell Hillier.

 

“I remember playing Cardiff Schools at Kingsholm and beating them,” he said, “that was a big thing, a wonderful thing.”

 

Not that he spent too much time at school because he left when he was 15-and-a-half.

 

“I was frightened of the exams,” he chuckled, “so I got an apprenticeship with engineering firm William Gardner.”

 

His life was moving on at a pace – almost as quickly as a trademark scrum-half break from the base of a ruck – and his rugby life was accelerating at a decent pace too.

 

“We used to go to the youth club in Longlevens,” said Booth. “There were a few of us – Nick Healey, who was an Old Cryptian, Brian Price, who played for England Schools, and Terry Hancock.”

 

With so many good rugby players knocking about, it was almost inevitable that talk should turn to establishing a rugby club in Longlevens.

 

That happened in 1954 and by the end of their first season they had reached the North Gloucestershire Combination Junior Cup final at Kingsholm.

 

That wasn’t a bad first campaign and Booth was clearly at the forefront of all that was good about the embryonic club even though they had to play all their games away from home because they had no ground of their own.

 

However, Booth was to spend only one season at Longlevens before making the short trip across the city to play for Spartans.

 

“A lot of my mates were there and they enticed me,” he explained. 

 

And again it turned out to be a good move as he got to play at Kingshom again in another cup final.

 

This time it was in the Combination’s Senior Cup and it was against Gordon League.

 

“The first match was 0-0 and the second match finished 3-3 so we ended up sharing the cup,” chuckled Booth. “You don’t get many 0-0’s or even 3-3’s today do you!”

 

By now Booth’s exploits on the pitch were coming to the attention of people who knew a thing or two about rugby – and he had the ambition to match his talent.

 

“I always wanted to play for Gloucester,” he said. “But then when I got asked to join I told them I wasn’t sure I was ready!

 

“I was taken to one side and told that I would get three guaranteed 2nd XV games.”

 

And the committeeman who persuaded Booth to join the club was true to his word because Booth was soon lining up for his 2nd team debut against Bristol Aircraft Company at what was then the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.

 

And he must have done okay in that game because his 1st XV debut was only just around the corner.

 

“My second game should have been against Cardiff University but the game got called off because of flooding,” he said. “Then on the Saturday the 1st XV lost 33-3 at Leicester and they decided to make changes.”

 

They certainly did and one of those changes was to see Booth given his debut at the age of just 17.

 

“It was against Oxford University in Oxford and it was a very important game because it was their last one before the Varsity match against Cambridge,” recalled Booth

 

“We lost 14-9 but there were a lot of people watching the game.

 

“The next week I played against Bath at Kingsholm. The rivalry wasn’t like it is today but we beat them – it’s always a pleasure beating Bath!”

 

Booth’s Gloucester career was up and running at an age when he still wasn’t eligible to vote.

 

But while he couldn’t have his say back then on who should be the next Prime Minister, he certainly had a huge say over the next few years for Gloucester, for whom he played 475 games and captained for three seasons. He also played for Gloucestershire 42 times and added: “I’m rather proud of that.” 

 

So what type of scrum-half was he?

 

“It’s a different game today,” he said. “In my day the first priority was to pass the ball. My job was to get the ball that the forwards had battled so hard to win out to the backs.

 

“I wasn’t all that quick but I still made the odd break and I think I hold the club record for the number of dropped goals.

 

“I scored a few tries as well.” 

 

In those days he was often referred to as ‘The General’ such was the control he used to exert over games.

 

“They could call me what they like,” he laughed, “I didn’t mind. I think it was quite an easy name to give me after General Booth who founded the Salvation Army.”

 

But while Booth was a Gloucester boy through and through, his call-up for National Service in 1960 meant he would soon have to do the almost unthinkable and play against his beloved Cherry and Whites.

 

“I was based at RAF Innsworth and it was a very pleasurable two years,” said Booth.

 

“I played rugby with some wonderful players, including the rugby legend Alex Murphy who was my half-back partner. I played in Africa, I played at Twickenham against The Navy and I played for the British Combined Services four times.”

 

And he also played against Gloucester, so how did that go?

 

“The RAF took priority so I had to play for them,” he chuckled. “I did okay. I think the likes of Peter Ford, Denis Ibbotson and George Hastings let me off lightly. They knew my game backwards, I think I got away with it!”

 

Booth is under-playing himself, of course, and once he was back in the ranks at Gloucester he was soon taking the lead role on the pitch.

 

“I was captain three times in the 60s,” he said with understandable pride. “The beauty of being captain at Gloucester was that you weren’t elected by the committee, you were chosen by the players.

 

“The players wanted me to be captain and I was very, very proud.”

 

And there were some very good players at Gloucester in those days – John Bayliss, Terry Hopson, Tom Palmer, Denis Ibbotson, Peter Ford and George Hastings to name just a few.

 

“We had some real good sides,” said Booth, “In the old days Gloucester were made up of pretty much local players. Local rugby was very strong.”

 

And that was never more evident than when Gloucester beat Moseley 17-6 in the knockout cup final at Twickenham in 1972…

 

“Thirteen of the players were from local rugby,” said Booth. “Palmer was from Cornwall – that was just about okay! – and Jim Jarrett was from Pontypool.

 

“Jim used to captain Pontypool and he’d say to us, ‘you can’t call me an outsider, I can get to my mother’s door in Pontypool in 55 minutes!’”

 

That cup final was to be Booth’s last in a Gloucester shirt and although the game didn’t live up to expectations, Gloucester’s journey to Twickenham was certainly something special.

 

“The final was a dreadful game,” recalled Booth, “but we’d played some fantastic rugby to get there.

 

“We won at Coventry in the semi-final – that was a fierce battle between the forwards and the atmosphere was fantastic.

 

“We won at London Welsh in the quarter-final at a time when they had the strongest side in the country with British Lions like John Dawes, Mervyn Davies and John Taylor.

 

“We also beat Bath in Bath and Bristol in Bristol. All our games were away.”

 

It was clearly a memorable season for Gloucester, so why did Booth decide to quit after the final?

 

“I’d got a bit slow,” he said. “If you’re a scrum-half you’ve got be very quick and nippy and I wasn’t as nippy as I used to be.

 

“So I thought that’s it for me but I’d had a marvellous career and it was a privilege to play for Gloucester.”

 

And if Gloucester supporters had had their way, Booth would be finishing that last sentence with the words “and England” too.

 

Booth never did get to play for England of course. He featured in trials but could never find a way to get past Dickie Jeeps.

 

“It was a big shame because everyone wants to play for their country,” said Booth, “but Dickie Jeeps was a very, very fine player.”

 

Booth wasn’t the only Gloucester player to miss out on an England cap in this era – something that still puzzles many rugby fans of the day.

 

Centre John Bayliss was another and Booth said: “It used to be said that John Bayliss should play in every final trial so that he could test how good the other England centres were. 

 

“Well, if he was that good, why didn’t they pick him? He was so well respected in the game.

 

“Dick Smith was another, He was the best Gloucester player I played with. He was fast, he had everything. It was very sad he didn’t get a cap.”

 

It didn’t help that in those days there were only four internationals each season – not the 10-plus that there are today – and also back then there weren’t the multiple replacements that there are now. In fact there were no substitutes at all.

 

Booth isn’t a fan of all the changes that have been introduced into the game since he stopped playing but he does think that being able to bring on replacements – albeit only for injured players – is right and proper.

 

“I don’t like all the subs going on but subs for injured players are a good idea,” he said. “I remember playing down in Neath and one of our players got flattened right from the kick-off.

 

“It meant that we had to play the whole game with 14 men, it was a joke. It was tough enough playing with 15 but playing with 14 left us with a mountain to climb.”

 

Welsh club rugby was very strong in those days and it was particularly tough for English teams when they played them in their own back yard.

 

“The ref always seemed to live just round the corner from their ground,” laughed Booth.

 

That’s not to say that Gloucester always came back over the Severn Bridge empty-handed.

 

“I remember one season when I was captain we went to Newport and really raised our game,” said Booth. “We beat them 14-0, that was Gloucester’s best performance in Wales while I was there.”

 

Booth has other memories from those games in Wales.

 

“I remember we drew 0-0 at Cardiff,” he said. “It was played on such a rock hard ground, it was a farce.”

 

That game may have been pointless but Booth’s involvement in rugby since 1972 has been anything but.

 

“Tom Voyce asked me to join the club’s committee and I’ve stayed involved in rugby pretty much ever since,” he said.

 

That involvement saw him coach the England Under-21s alongside former hooker John Elliott, from Nottingham, in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

“I was invited to be assistant manager,” said Booth. “Geoff Cooke was chairman of selectors at the time.

 

“We toured Australia for five weeks with the under-21s and we beat Australia in Sydney. That was a fantastic achievement because we got the system and team going from scratch. We nursed those players through.

 

“We created a system which made it a lot easier to pick teams. That tour was the third year of the five that I was involved.”

 

So who was in the England team?

 

“Austen Healey, Will Greenwood, Lawrence Dallaglio, Richard Hill, Mark Regan,” said Booth. “They all went on to become British Lions. It was a pleasure to be involved, especially now when you look back because so many played for the Lions or became World Cup winners.

 

“It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

 

Booth has a picture of that victorious England Under-21 team – signed by the players – at his home in Hucclecote.

 

Nowadays he heads just down the road to Hucclecote Rugby Club on occasion to watch his grandson Ashley play and he still keeps an eye out for Spartans and Longlevens’ results.

 

Rugby will always be Booth’s first love when it comes to sport, but he could turn his hand to other sports as well.

 

“We used to have our own cricket team made up of Gloucester rugby players and we were pretty good,” said Booth, who would often open the batting with his pal John Bayliss.

 

“I remember running him out once,” he laughed. “He wasn’t very happy. He threw his pads off and kept shouting at me. I was frightened to get out that day! As it happened I got a few runs!

 

“We had some good cricketers – Don Rutherford, Eric Stephens, they were wonderful cricketers. We used to go to games in the back of one of Peter Ford’s lorries with the wives and kids in cradles. We wouldn’t be allowed to do that now!

 

“It was a very enjoyable period of my life.”

 

Booth also took a bit of a shine to the game of bowls and when he spoke to The Local Answer was looking forward to his first game of the season.

 

He plays at Barnwood and and is a former captain of the club – no real surprise there!

 

“I enjoy it and Barnwood are a lovely club,” he said. “I didn’t want to play golf because there’s too much walking!”

 

Interview nearly over, Booth wanted to make a couple more observations about the great game of rugby – he didn’t want to waste his homework, did he!

 

“I remember I used to have to lie flat on the ground in the mud and hold the ball for the place-kicker before he kicked the ball,” he said.

 

“There were no cones, how ridiculous was that?

 

“And we used to play 60 fixtures a season – we’d play every Wednesday.”

 

And in those days the game was very much amateur of course, so were there any perks for Booth and his mates?

 

“You were entitled to a new pair of boots if you were considered good enough,” he chuckled. “They cost about £2 and 10 shillings.

 

“And we got two jugs of beer after a game. Mind you, the forwards had larger thirsts so players like me didn’t get much of it!”

 

That may or may not be true, but what is certainly true is that you don’t need to do your homework to know that Mickey Booth will go down as one of Gloucester’s great rugby players of all time.Mickey Booth had done his homework ahead of his interview with The Local Answer.

That’s not too surprising because he obviously did plenty of homework in his younger days as well. You don’t play well over 450 games for Gloucester without knowing something about the players you are coming up against week in, week out.

The interview had been arranged through his son Dave – a well-known figure in local rugby circles in Gloucester – and Booth senior, one of the greats of Gloucester rugby back in the day, was certainly prepared for the questions that were put to him.

And while the 79-year-old was more than happy to talk about his many achievements over the years, he was also keen to talk about the great game of rugby in more general terms.

You see, Booth is something of a rugby connoisseur.

A one-time scrum-half, hanging up his boots at the age of 32 didn’t mean that he was turning his back on a game that had played such a big part in his life.

Far from it. He was encouraged to join Gloucester’s committee almost as soon as he had untied his laces for the last time and he went on to coach England’s Under-21s some 25-odd years ago.

These days he is a life member at Gloucester and is a regular at Kingsholm alongside his good friend Peter Ford – another Gloucester great. And they go to some away games too, including the recent European Challenge Cup final against Cardiff Blues in Bilbao.

Booth’s love of all things Gloucester kicked in at a very early age.

“I was born only 50 to 70 yards away from Kingsholm,” he chuckled. “I remember we used to climb over the fence or slip in through the open door when no one was looking! That was a long, long time ago.”

That’s boys being boys, of course. Increased security means today’s youngsters are unlikely to get in and see their heroes for free but while Booth admits to chancing his arm on occasion, it’s fair to say that the young Booth would also do anything to help out the club as well.

“We’d help put the straw on the ground if there was a frost,” said Booth. “There were no covers in those days and we’d take all the straw off before the game. We used to get a free ticket to games when we did that.”

That was back in the the early 50s when Booth was starting to discover that it was just as much fun to play the game as it was to watch it.

“As a boy we used to go to a recreation field just up the road,” recalled Booth. “We’d roll up a sack cloth, tie a piece of string round it and use it as a ball. And we’d put coats down for the posts.

“I remember coming home one day and I’d lost my best coat – I had to stay in for a long time after that!”

And while a coat-less Booth was clearly feeling the cold more than his mates, he was soon to discover that playing rugby for real was enough to warm anyone’s heart.

“I went to St Mark’s Infants and Juniors,” he said, “and I passed my 11-plus... I don’t know how!

“I went to Tommy Rich’s and they were a rugby school, I thoroughly enjoyed my rugby there.

“We had a good team and lost only one game in all my time there. They were wonderful times.”

In the very early days Booth played in the centre – “My favourite player was Cardiff’s Bleddyn Williams who played in the centre,” said Booth – but by the time he was 12 he was wearing number 9.

“Our teacher Howard Terrington, who used to play for Leicester, told me to play there,” explained Booth.

And teacher clearly knew best because it was a position that Booth made his own at whatever level he was playing for the next two decades.

That included playing for Gloucester Schools alongside his long-time friend and half-back partner Russell Hillier.

“I remember playing Cardiff Schools at Kingsholm and beating them,” he said, “that was a big thing, a wonderful thing.”

Not that he spent too much time at school because he left when he was 15-and-a-half.

“I was frightened of the exams,” he chuckled, “so I got an apprenticeship with engineering firm William Gardner.”

His life was moving on at a pace – almost as quickly as a trademark scrum-half break from the base of a ruck – and his rugby life was accelerating at a decent pace too.

“We used to go to the youth club in Longlevens,” said Booth. “There were a few of us – Nick Healey, who was an Old Cryptian, Brian Price, who played for England Schools, and Terry Hancock.”

With so many good rugby players knocking about, it was almost inevitable that talk should turn to establishing a rugby club in Longlevens.

That happened in 1954 and by the end of their first season they had reached the North Gloucestershire Combination Junior Cup final at Kingsholm.

That wasn’t a bad first campaign and Booth was clearly at the forefront of all that was good about the embryonic club even though they had to play all their games away from home because they had no ground of their own.

However, Booth was to spend only one season at Longlevens before making the short trip across the city to play for Spartans.

“A lot of my mates were there and they enticed me,” he explained.

And again it turned out to be a good move as he got to play at Kingshom again in another cup final.

This time it was in the Combination’s Senior Cup and it was against Gordon League.

“The first match was 0-0 and the second match finished 3-3 so we ended up sharing the cup,” chuckled Booth. “You don’t get many 0-0’s or even 3-3’s today do you!”

By now Booth’s exploits on the pitch were coming to the attention of people who knew a thing or two about rugby – and he had the ambition to match his talent.

“I always wanted to play for Gloucester,” he said. “But then when I got asked to join I told them I wasn’t sure I was ready!

“I was taken to one side and told that I would get three guaranteed 2nd XV games.”

And the committeeman who persuaded Booth to join the club was true to his word because Booth was soon lining up for his 2nd team debut against Bristol Aircraft Company at what was then the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.

And he must have done okay in that game because his 1st XV debut was only just around the corner.

“My second game should have been against Cardiff University but the game got called off because of flooding,” he said. “Then on the Saturday the 1st XV lost 33-3 at Leicester and they decided to make changes.”

They certainly did and one of those changes was to see Booth given his debut at the age of just 17.

“It was against Oxford University in Oxford and it was a very important game because it was their last one before the Varsity match against Cambridge,” recalled Booth

“We lost 14-9 but there were a lot of people watching the game.

“The next week I played against Bath at Kingsholm. The rivalry wasn’t like it is today but we beat them – it’s always a pleasure beating Bath!”

Booth’s Gloucester career was up and running at an age when he still wasn’t eligible to vote.

But while he couldn’t have his say back then on who should be the next Prime Minister, he certainly had a huge say over the next few years for Gloucester, for whom he played 475 games and captained for three seasons. He also played for Gloucestershire 42 times and added: “I’m rather proud of that.”

So what type of scrum-half was he?

“It’s a different game today,” he said. “In my day the first priority was to pass the ball. My job was to get the ball that the forwards had battled so hard to win out to the backs.

“I wasn’t all that quick but I still made the odd break and I think I hold the club record for the number of dropped goals.

“I scored a few tries as well.”

In those days he was often referred to as ‘The General’ such was the control he used to exert over games.

“They could call me what they like,” he laughed, “I didn’t mind. I think it was quite an easy name to give me after General Booth who founded the Salvation Army.”

But while Booth was a Gloucester boy through and through, his call-up for National Service in 1960 meant he would soon have to do the almost unthinkable and play against his beloved Cherry and Whites.

“I was based at RAF Innsworth and it was a very pleasurable two years,” said Booth.

“I played rugby with some wonderful players, including the rugby legend Alex Murphy who was my half-back partner. I played in Africa, I played at Twickenham against The Navy and I played for the British Combined Services four times.”

And he also played against Gloucester, so how did that go?

“The RAF took priority so I had to play for them,” he chuckled. “I did okay. I think the likes of Peter Ford, Denis Ibbotson and George Hastings let me off lightly. They knew my game backwards, I think I got away with it!”

Booth is under-playing himself, of course, and once he was back in the ranks at Gloucester he was soon taking the lead role on the pitch.

“I was captain three times in the 60s,” he said with understandable pride. “The beauty of being captain at Gloucester was that you weren’t elected by the committee, you were chosen by the players.

“The players wanted me to be captain and I was very, very proud.”

And there were some very good players at Gloucester in those days – John Bayliss, Terry Hopson, Tom Palmer, Denis Ibbotson, Peter Ford and George Hastings to name just a few.

“We had some real good sides,” said Booth, “In the old days Gloucester were made up of pretty much local players. Local rugby was very strong.”

And that was never more evident than when Gloucester beat Moseley 17-6 in the knockout cup final at Twickenham in 1972…

“Thirteen of the players were from local rugby,” said Booth. “Palmer was from Cornwall – that was just about okay! – and Jim Jarrett was from Pontypool.

“Jim used to captain Pontypool and he’d say to us, ‘you can’t call me an outsider, I can get to my mother’s door in Pontypool in 55 minutes!’”

That cup final was to be Booth’s last in a Gloucester shirt and although the game didn’t live up to expectations, Gloucester’s journey to Twickenham was certainly something special.

“The final was a dreadful game,” recalled Booth, “but we’d played some fantastic rugby to get there.

“We won at Coventry in the semi-final – that was a fierce battle between the forwards and the atmosphere was fantastic.

“We won at London Welsh in the quarter-final at a time when they had the strongest side in the country with British Lions like John Dawes, Mervyn Davies and John Taylor.

“We also beat Bath in Bath and Bristol in Bristol. All our games were away.”

It was clearly a memorable season for Gloucester, so why did Booth decide to quit after the final?

“I’d got a bit slow,” he said. “If you’re a scrum-half you’ve got be very quick and nippy and I wasn’t as nippy as I used to be.

“So I thought that’s it for me but I’d had a marvellous career and it was a privilege to play for Gloucester.”

And if Gloucester supporters had had their way, Booth would be finishing that last sentence with the words “and England” too.

Booth never did get to play for England of course. He featured in trials but could never find a way to get past Dickie Jeeps.

“It was a big shame because everyone wants to play for their country,” said Booth, “but Dickie Jeeps was a very, very fine player.”

Booth wasn’t the only Gloucester player to miss out on an England cap in this era – something that still puzzles many rugby fans of the day.

Centre John Bayliss was another and Booth said: “It used to be said that John Bayliss should play in every final trial so that he could test how good the other England centres were.

“Well, if he was that good, why didn’t they pick him? He was so well respected in the game.

“Dick Smith was another, He was the best Gloucester player I played with. He was fast, he had everything. It was very sad he didn’t get a cap.”

It didn’t help that in those days there were only four internationals each season – not the 10-plus that there are today – and also back then there weren’t the multiple replacements that there are now. In fact there were no substitutes at all.

Booth isn’t a fan of all the changes that have been introduced into the game since he stopped playing but he does think that being able to bring on replacements – albeit only for injured players – is right and proper.

“I don’t like all the subs going on but subs for injured players are a good idea,” he said. “I remember playing down in Neath and one of our players got flattened right from the kick-off.

“It meant that we had to play the whole game with 14 men, it was a joke. It was tough enough playing with 15 but playing with 14 left us with a mountain to climb.”

Welsh club rugby was very strong in those days and it was particularly tough for English teams when they played them in their own back yard.

“The ref always seemed to live just round the corner from their ground,” laughed Booth.

That’s not to say that Gloucester always came back over the Severn Bridge empty-handed.

“I remember one season when I was captain we went to Newport and really raised our game,” said Booth. “We beat them 14-0, that was Gloucester’s best performance in Wales while I was there.”

Booth has other memories from those games in Wales.

“I remember we drew 0-0 at Cardiff,” he said. “It was played on such a rock hard ground, it was a farce.”

That game may have been pointless but Booth’s involvement in rugby since 1972 has been anything but.

“Tom Voyce asked me to join the club’s committee and I’ve stayed involved in rugby pretty much ever since,” he said.

That involvement saw him coach the England Under-21s alongside former hooker John Elliott, from Nottingham, in the late 80s and early 90s.

“I was invited to be assistant manager,” said Booth. “Geoff Cooke was chairman of selectors at the time.

“We toured Australia for five weeks with the under-21s and we beat Australia in Sydney. That was a fantastic achievement because we got the system and team going from scratch. We nursed those players through.

“We created a system which made it a lot easier to pick teams. That tour was the third year of the five that I was involved.”

So who was in the England team?

“Austen Healey, Will Greenwood, Lawrence Dallaglio, Richard Hill, Mark Regan,” said Booth. “They all went on to become British Lions. It was a pleasure to be involved, especially now when you look back because so many played for the Lions or became World Cup winners.

“It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Booth has a picture of that victorious England Under-21 team – signed by the players – at his home in Hucclecote.

Nowadays he heads just down the road to Hucclecote Rugby Club on occasion to watch his grandson Ashley play and he still keeps an eye out for Spartans and Longlevens’ results.

Rugby will always be Booth’s first love when it comes to sport, but he could turn his hand to other sports as well.

“We used to have our own cricket team made up of Gloucester rugby players and we were pretty good,” said Booth, who would often open the batting with his pal John Bayliss.

“I remember running him out once,” he laughed. “He wasn’t very happy. He threw his pads off and kept shouting at me. I was frightened to get out that day! As it happened I got a few runs!

“We had some good cricketers – Don Rutherford, Eric Stephens, they were wonderful cricketers. We used to go to games in the back of one of Peter Ford’s lorries with the wives and kids in cradles. We wouldn’t be allowed to do that now!

“It was a very enjoyable period of my life.”

Booth also took a bit of a shine to the game of bowls and when he spoke to The Local Answer was looking forward to his first game of the season.

He plays at Barnwood and and is a former captain of the club – no real surprise there!

“I enjoy it and Barnwood are a lovely club,” he said. “I didn’t want to play golf because there’s too much walking!”

Interview nearly over, Booth wanted to make a couple more observations about the great game of rugby – he didn’t want to waste his homework, did he!

“I remember I used to have to lie flat on the ground in the mud and hold the ball for the place-kicker before he kicked the ball,” he said.

“There were no cones, how ridiculous was that?

“And we used to play 60 fixtures a season – we’d play every Wednesday.”

And in those days the game was very much amateur of course, so were there any perks for Booth and his mates?

“You were entitled to a new pair of boots if you were considered good enough,” he chuckled. “They cost about £2 and 10 shillings.

“And we got two jugs of beer after a game. Mind you, the forwards had larger thirsts so players like me didn’t get much of it!”

That may or may not be true, but what is certainly true is that you don’t need to do your homework to know that Mickey Booth will go down as one of Gloucester’s great rugby players of all time.