Double-achievers who have made their mark in two worlds

David Perry

DAVID PERRY is one of the few on our list who is a corporate man rather than an entrepreneur. Now 55, he played rugby for the Barbarians and England between 1963 and 1966, captaining the national side during the 1965 season before an injury ended his career. It was, he says, a blessing in disguise, enabling him to 'get on with life and start working my way up a company'.

The company was British Printing Corporation, which he joined as sales director in 1966, emerging on the board by 1980. In 1981, he joined John Waddington, the printing, packaging and games manufacturer that makes Monopoly. He became chief executive in 1988 and chairman earlier this year.

Chris Chataway

CHRIS CHATAWAY, 62, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority, is a former sportsman who has perhaps become better known in business. Rather unkindly dubbed 'the nearly man' by one national newspaper recently, he briefly held the world record for 5,000 metres in 1954 and harboured ambitions to be the first to break the four-minute mile, but ended up being the pacemaker to Roger Bannister instead.

Since then, the Oxford-educated athlete has developed careers in the media, politics and business. He became one of ITN's first newscasters in 1955, and moved into politics where, as MP for Lewisham North and later Chichester, he became minister of power and minister of posts and communications.

More recently he chaired Crown Communications, the media group that held stakes in a string of radio stations including LBC and Invicta Sound. But the company went bust earlier this year, following a disastrous foray into the French radio market.

Phil Edmonds

HALF Belgian and brought up in Zambia, the Middlesex and England spin bowler Phillipe Henri Edmonds was never a run-of- the-mill cricketer. Forthright, sometimes to the point of being rude, this is the man who is alleged to have said to his captain Mike Brearley after a particularly slow and - he thought - selfish innings: 'Is this a team game, or what? (expletive deleted).'

Since hanging up his flannels, Edmonds, now 42, has flung himself into the business career he dabbled in while playing. From an office in London, he has built up stakes in several quoted companies. He also has a stake in a Hertfordshire country club called Stocks.

At the time of speaking, he was hoping to put together another deal with a listed company.

Fran Cotton

A MEMBER of Bill Beaumont's grand-slam winning team of 1980, Fran Cotton is now managing director of Cotton Traders, a mail-order leisurewear company based in Cheshire.

Following spells as sales managers at Bukta, a sportswear company, Cotton and Steve Smith, an England colleague, tried to buy the company in 1987 but were outbid by fashion group French Connection, which invited the pair to become joint managing directors. In 1987, they left to form Cotton Traders with another ex-England man, Tony Neary. Backed with pounds 60,000 from venture capitalists 3i, the sporting trio have built the company into a business with a pounds 13m turnover.

Terry Venables

DESCRIBING Terry Venables as a successful sportsman turned businessman might be wide of the mark given the roller-coaster ride that has characterised his career, but he is one of the few to have made it to chief executive of a quoted company (he was recently ousted from Tottenham Hotspur plc, where his salary was pounds 250,000 a year).

Persistently entrepreneurial, at 50 he has written detective books, opened boutiques, and owned a ticket agency and several pubs. In between, he squeezed in a career as a football manager with Crystal Palace, QPR, Barcelona and Spurs.

Still locked in battle with Alan Sugar for control of Tottenham, Venables' problem might be simply that he takes on too much.

David Lloyd

DAVID LLOYD'S younger brother John might have achieved a top 20 ranking and married Chris Evert, but David was no slouch on the tennis court. He reached the Wimbledon doubles semi-final in 1973 and was a regular member of Britain's Davis Cup team during a 17-year career that ended in 1980.

Now 45, Lloyd has made a successful business with David Lloyd Leisure, a company that owns and operates indoor tennis centres and was floated on the stock market earlier this year. It made pounds 3m profits on sales of pounds 15m last year.

He opened his first centre in 1982 and now has seven - most with gyms and swimming pools - in and around London. Chairman of the company, Lloyd also owns 8 per cent of the shares, worth around pounds 7.5m.

Bright stars who fell to earth

MANY who were nearly unbeatable in the world of sport found the going tough in business.

Bobby Moore - The former England captain who led his country to soccer's 1966 World Cup and whose death saddened the nation earlier this year. His sports marketing company, Challenge, failed in 1991 with debts of pounds 2m. An Essex country club venture with actor Sean Connery went under in 1973, and a leather business he partnered with comedian Jimmy Tarbuck also went bust.

James Hunt - Motor racing's golden boy who won the World Championship in 1976. He died in June, aged 45, after making a fortune through racing, then losing it. Two failures were a Marbella nightclub and a go- kart centre in Milton Keynes. More recently as an investor in Lloyd's underwriting, he stood to lose pounds 180,000.

John Conteh - A lover of the good life, the former world light-heavyweight boxing champion didn't find it in his business ventures. A Mayfair disco and restaurant closed in the early 1980s, costing him some pounds 100,000. He was declared bankrupt in 1989 and now makes guest appearances.

Derek Warwick - The Formula One racer retired in 1990, then made a comeback, but lost a rumoured pounds 500,000 when a golf-kit company, Pro-Drive, went into liquidation earlier this month.

Gary Mason - The former British heavyweight boxer took it on the chin with the failures of a jewellery business and a fashion sportswear shop. He is now chairman of the World Arm-Wrestling Federation.

(Photograph omitted)