Sam Legge is a freelance photographer but he should, perhaps, have trained to be a juggler.

That’s because he juggles the demands of running his own business – he’s self-employed – with those of playing a sport that is a hobby but one that, nonetheless, places huge demands on its participants.

Legge plays water polo, a sport that requires huge levels of fitness and commitment as well as ability.

The 33-year-old plays for Cheltenham, one of the best teams in the land who have been multiple winners of the British League title over the years.

He is a goalkeeper and has been playing for his hometown team for some 17 years – their last British League title win was in 2016 – and he has been captain for the past five years.

He enjoys the sport, of course he does, and he certainly enjoys winning, but he has had to make plenty of sacrifices along the way in order to enjoy those special moments.

“Yes, I have,” said Legge, who recently became a dad for the first time. “It’s not just the training, it’s the weekends away to play matches.

“We pay our own travel and pay for our own accommodation. It’s tough but it’s rewarding.”

Cheltenham play in Division One of the British Water Polo League, a division that is made up of eight elite teams.

Two of the eight – Polytechnic and Penguin – are London-based, Welsh Wanderers are based in Cardiff with the rest of the division made up of Manchester, Lancaster, Sutton & Cheam and Sheffield. 

“We play all our games at neutral venues,” explained Legge, a one-time Balcarras School pupil who took up water polo at the age of 12. “They can be played at places like Aldershot, Watford and Lancaster.

“We’ll play one team on a Saturday and another on a Sunday, we stay over on the Saturday night. On one of the weekends we’ll play three matches, two on a Saturday and one on a Sunday.

“The aim is to finish in the top five and qualify for the Super Fives in the second half of the season.”

That’s something that Cheltenham would expect to achieve but it would, in turn, mean another couple of weekends away, of course.

And that’s not all because Cheltenham have also entered the Nordic League which is a European competition and, as its name suggests, features a number of teams from Scandinavia.

“There are also teams from Germany and Spain taking part, it’s Europe wide,” explained Legge. “The group games are in Tenerife!”

Those group games are set to take place in February and Legge continued: “We’ve got a first-team squad of 14 and train in the water three times a week at the leisure centre in Cheltenham and GL1 in Gloucester.

“Most of the players are in their early 20s. Three of us are over 30 and the youngest is 17.”

Seven players make up a water polo team and just like Legge, everyone else in the Cheltenham squad has to juggle their sport around everyday life.

“One of the team is a chaplain, we’ve got a mechanic, an anaesthetist, financial planners, recruiters, someone who works in security and a couple of students,” said Legge, who lives in Bishop’s Cleeve. “Everything is self-funded.

“The season runs from October to March. We then have a couple of weeks off but we train all through the summer at the Lido.”

Legge refuses to contemplate how much time he devotes to water polo each day, week, month and year, but suffice to say it is a lot and suffice to say that as captain the demands on him are just that bit greater. 

“As captain I do feel I have a responsibility to make as many training sessions as possible,” he said. “I try to encourage the younger players to keep playing and it’s my job to motivate the players when we play matches.”

There’s also the admin side as well, although Legge is hugely grateful to coaches Dave Taylor and James Ross, who, he says, do an awful lot of hard work.

That hard work helped Cheltenham to win the British Championship last season – that’s the equivalent of football’s FA Cup – and Legge would certainly like to win at least one more British League title before he hangs up his hat.

He reckons he’s got at least another couple of seasons in him and he said: “To win it again with this group would be the icing on the cake.

“I am finding the commitment/juggling act tougher but I want to keep going for a bit longer.”

And he certainly won’t sail away from the sport when he does finish playing.

“I want to stay involved,” he insisted. “I haven’t worked out just what that involvement will be but I’ve got so much out of water polo, I want to give something back. Water polo is very strong in Cheltenham but that doesn't just happen.”

Legge says that there are well over 100 players at the club.

“We run a men’s 2^nd team – Cheltenham Spartans – and we also have a ladies’ team who play in Division One of the British League,” said Legge. “We’ve also got a strong youth set-up.”

And some of those youngsters coming through the youth set-up may well emulate the achievements of today’s first-team players such as Rudi Polster, George Davies and Thomas Hunt, who are all part of the Great Britain set-up.

Just like Legge, those three players have poured their heart and soul into the sport, and just like Legge, they will have enjoyed pretty much every minute.