When football-loving Rob Thompson played his first game of skittles it was still two years until England would win the World Cup in 1966.

Thompson was only 17 when he made his debut for the Bluebells, so-called because they were started by players from King’s Stanley Football Club, a club that are known as the Bluebells.

The young Thompson was a footballer at King’s Stanley “on and off” and his first skittles match in 1964 was also the first game that the Bluebells ever played the ever-popular indoor game.

“It was at the King’s Head at King’s Stanley,” said the now 71-year-old. “The alley was upstairs where the new restaurant is now. There used to be a fireplace sticking out into the alley which got in the way sometimes.”

Thompson can’t remember which team they were playing on their debut but when asked if he thought the Bluebells won, he laughed before saying “probably”.

And while he didn’t have the honour of bowling the first ball in Bluebells’ history – “That was probably Eddie Bassett,” he said – he has certainly been an integral part of the Stroud Skittles League team ever since and when he spoke to The Local Answer was closing in on a significant milestone.

“I can tell you I’ve played 1,195 games for the team since 1970,” he said with considerable pride. “I’ve only missed a handful of games over the years and play whenever I can.”

And he’s not the only one in the Bluebells team whose name should be pre-fixed by the word ‘long-serving’.

“Dave Frape played in that first game as well and he’s still playing,” said Thompson. “And we’ve got five or six others who started playing two or three years after us – Martin Camm, Colin Bailey, Jim Bidmead, Terry Evans and Rob Williams.”

Thompson has been captain, he says, for “something like 40 years, I forget”. Frape, meanwhile, is his vice-captain and they have a regular squad of 14 players to call on.

Matches are 10-a-side and Thompson said: “We’re all getting on a bit, 11 of us are retired, but we’re never really short of players.”

That’s still the case even though at the start of last season the team started playing their home matches at Frocester Cricket Club instead of at the King’s Head.

The vast majority of the squad, including Thompson, live in King’s Stanley but Thompson said the move was not a problem because now they have “designated drivers”.

And there were certainly no problems adapting to their new alley because the Bluebells won Section C of the Stroud League last season.

“We’ve been up and down, up and down,” chuckled Thompson, “we’ve become known as the yo-yo’s.”

Not that that is a problem for Thompson. “Our team has a really good social side,” he explained. “We like the banter, the friendship. We go along for the laughs.”

Thompson used to ‘stick up’ before he started playing skittles and it is a family tradition that was maintained by his son Chris and daughter Melisa. These days Thompson’s 15-year-old grandson Sam does the sticking up for the team and the teenager will have seen at first-hand that his grandad is still a good skittler.

Grandad has a highest score of 87 which came at the Matchway Club alley, which is one of the newer alleys.

“The new alleys are a lot easier,” admitted Thompson, “but it was still a good score because we only play eight hands in the Stroud League. And we won the match as well. It was against Victorians who my brother-in-law Geoff Lane plays for.”

Thompson, who watches King’s Stanley play football every Saturday – “Sometimes it’s just me, Martin Camm and a cat watching,” he laughed – has no intention of giving up his skittles any time soon.

“I want to keep on going,” he said. “It’s the only game where you are allowed to legally hit a policeman.”

And just in case you’re wondering, ‘a policeman’ or ‘a copper’ as they are also known, are the outside pins on the left and right of the alley!