FORMER England and Gloucester star Mike Tindall has revealed why he still loves to pull on the shirt for his local club Minchinhampton RFC at the age of 38, writes Liam Lines.

When his various media commitments allow Tindall is happy to help out at Minch who play in Gloucester Two at Level 10 in the rugby pyramid.

Tindall turns out for them half a dozen times a season and he was in the line-up on Saturday when they won their first home game of the campaign 26-17 against Bristol Aeroplane Co.

“The biggest thing about leaving professional sport is losing 30 of your best mates," said Tindall.

"I still love the game, I still love having a run around, and Minchinhampton is my local club.

"I originally came down here just to do touch rugby on Thursday night and I enjoyed it.

"It’s a great bunch of lads and it’s a great social club. It gives you the bits you miss from the professional sport without having to do all the hard training, which works for me.

“I try to play in invitational games, it sort of keeps you match sharp, well as match sharp as you can get.

"I enjoy it more than anything else. It's my local club and it’s good to come down and support them.”

Tindall also gave his take on the changes at his former club Gloucester.

“I try to watch a lot of sport," he said. "I don’t get to go to Gloucester as much as I would like, and they are going through a slight transition after three sort of bad years.

"Johan Ackermann coming in this year, there’s been signs already that things are turning a little bit.

"I’ve got news from the players that they like the way Johan operates so, hopefully, it's going to get better for them.

"I watch a lot of sport in general but as I say I quite enjoy running round playing a lot more.

“Now that I’ve retired, I watch more football than I used to.

"But with doing my radio stuff, it means you’ve got stuff you can talk about.

"But I still always watch rugby, I watch a lot of golf and the NFL.”