By Amanda Little

Last updated 13:39, Saturday, 12 April 2008

HE’S slept with film star Sophia Loren, seen Princess Diana with her hair in rollers and he even had his high-flying career inspired by movie legend Steve McQueen.

Cliff Heath

Yet Cumbria golf captain Cliff Heath has an even bigger claim to fame his players know nothing about – he was the inventor of the plastic used to make Coca-Cola and lemonade bottles.

Heath’s life before he took charge of running the county men’s team was a bit like a round of golf: frequently challenging, occasionally wondering if he’d ever be able to get himself out of the bunker but ultimately left with a glow of quiet satisfaction as he sits with a pint and reflects in the clubhouse.

The retired chemical engineer began life as a 16-year-old laboratory assistant with ICI in his native Teesside .

By the age of 46, he had risen to become one of ICI’s most powerful men, running four of the industrial giant’s 16 major British plants, with a workforce of over 2,000 and an annual turnover of £187million.

His reputation as a highly-respected captain of industry resulted in Prince Charles asking him to run his Business in the Community charity in the North West, which encourages businesses, councils and the church to work together. It was so successful, it became a model for other programmes throughout Britain.

If anyone could take charge of a losing golf team with morale at an all-time low and transform it into a motivated, successful and happy ship, it was Heath.

It was, he says with a wry smile, the hardest job he’s ever undertaken.

Two years on, Cumbria have won 10 and drawn two of their 14 games under his stewardship and players are preparing for the new season with an ambitious target of winning the double – the Northern Counties League and the Northern Counties Championship, known as the Big Six.

Heath inherited a team in disarray after the normally sedate county golf world was rocked by the controversy of one of their best players being banned for six months for performing a drunken strip-tease at an official dinner attended by the game’s top brass.

The decision to ban Carlisle golfer Nicky Bell in 2005 caused uproar among his team-mates who felt he had been harshly treated for a moment of madness.

Former England international Simon Young boycotted games in support of his friend, while John Longcake and Will Bowe were on the brink of quitting in protest.

The rumpus cast a shadow over the whole 2005 season, with the depleted Cumbria side soldiering on without some of their best players and finally collecting the wooden spoon in the Northern Counties League.

The whole sorry episode graphically exposed the difference between the players and old school blazers on the executive committee, who were accused of being out of step with the younger generation.

It was a masterstroke by the then president John Sheffield to ask his seniors’ team colleague Heath to become captain in 2005.

The 66-year-old, a member of Silloth on Solway, not only pulled them out of the rough, he has also been a breath of fresh air in the stuffy Pringle jumper-clad golf world.

He said: “We have a team of talented golfers and I’m not bad at management and organisation so we all bring something to the party.

“Everybody in the team has a role – for example, Simon Young is good at making people laugh, Nicky Bell is full of ideas and Martin Hand is a very good organiser. It’s called empowerment and if you do that with people it gives them responsibility.

“I’ve tried to develop teamship, which is one of the latest buzz-words. We get the executives out ball spotting, organising bananas for the players and have someone waiting in the restaurant to organise food for the players. The county executive under the leadership of John Holiday and Tom Stout do an incredible amount of work behind the scenes and organise 35 events a year which needs detailed planning.

“Things were in disarray when I was first asked to take on the role. A lot of good players didn’t want to play. They were supporting Nicky Bell as friends and there was a definite chasm between the executive and the players. My first task was to bridge that gap.

“I talk to everyone as an equal whether they are a top player, a member of the executive or a kiddie in the junior team. It’s one of the techniques you use in business and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever learned.

“The art is to get everyone talking the same language and sharing the same aims and objectives.”

Heath’s first aim was to try to restore some pride to the team and he took a leaf out the book of a much more famous golf captain.

He said: “When Tony Jacklin took over the Ryder Cup team, he said he wanted the Great Britain and Ireland team to fly to America by Concorde. They did and they won.

“One of the first important things I did was go to the executive and get money for the players’ new gear – new bags, shoes, jumpers, shorts and trousers.

“The second step was to get the players together and agree the best way forward with coaching and team selection. Now there’s no friction. If there’s a problem with a player the executive come to me, and if a player has a problem with any individual on the executive they come to me.

“I researched every guy on the team and then I met them at Silloth and told them what my rules for life are, what I expected and how I was going to pick the team.

“We got a draw in my first match against Yorkshire and could have won. We then lost to Durham, which was a shock to us, but since then we have lost only one game.”

Heath, who retired to live in Grasmere 16 years ago, can draw on years of experience from his business career when it comes to organising the team, handling big characters and motivating players.

He uses tried-and-tested business techniques he learned in his working life but his commonsense approach betrays him as a down-to-earth, kind man with a great sense of fun and bags of charisma.

He was drawn to chemical engineering because it was the occupation of Steve McQueen’s character in The Great Escape, and he thought it might impress the girl he had taken to see the film.

Coincidentally, he had grown up in shadow of ICI’s giant cooling chimneys near Middlesbrough, and he eventually became one of the company’s biggest bosses.

He travelled all over the world – once falling asleep sitting near Sophia Loren on a night flight back from Singapore.

“I can rightly claim to have slept with Sophia Loren,” he says laughing.

Catching Princess Diana at her less-than immaculate best came when he was making a private presentation to Prince Charles at Kensington Palace on HRH’s Business in the Community charity.

Heath said: “I walked into a room and there was a very pretty young lady sitting with a scarf on her head covering her curlers. ‘Whoops! Better go,’ she said and dashed out of the room.”

One of his biggest legacies to ICI was inventing the plastic used for Coca-Cola bottles by taking Terylene plastic and putting it through an innovative chemical process with catalysts.

Cumbria’s players have taken Heath to their hearts and it’s clear there is mutual respect and genuine affection for the non-playing captain. That was evident when tragedy touched Heath’s life for a second time last year.

Heath had taken up golf seriously at Silloth, as well as Windermere, in 1999 as he needed something to focus his mind on after being left devastated by the death of his wife Margaret from heart failure.

Two years ago, he lost his daughter Susan to cancer.

Heath, who also has a son Stephen, a sports lawyer, said: “When my wife died, golf helped me keep my mind, body and soul together.

“When Sue died I really threw myself into the county job. My daughter lived in Brighton so I was down there five days a week, travelling back and forward for seven months.

“The players and the executive were tremendous in giving me support and I really appreciated it. It pulled me through a very tough time and golf really has been very important to me.”

Team member Martin Hand said: “Cliff has been fantastic. His man-management skills are brilliant.

“The county team has so many different characters and he isable to deal with everyone individually.

“He knows how to treat people and lift them when they’re down or calm them down when they’re hyper. He has gelled everyone.

“The whole atmosphere in the camp now is so good and everybody is looking forward to the new season.”

Cumbria start the new season on Saturday, May 10, with a tough opening game against Lancashire at Seascale, and their captain is excited about his team’s prospects this summer.

Perhaps Heath’s biggest coup has been persuading Gary Wolstenholme, one of the world’s greatest amateurs, to play for them this year.

Wolstenholme, who has played in six Walker Cups for the Great Britain and Ireland team against the USA, left Leicestershire last year to live nearer his family in Heysham.

Cliff Heath may need the Cumbria golf team. But the Cumbria golf team also needs Cliff Heath.