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One name that's often missed is Frinton-on-Sea hockey player Norman Borrett.

Norman and Mullie Borrett in the 1940s

Borrett captained the British Olympic hockey team in 1948 and led them to a silver medal at Wembley stadium. They lost to India in the gold medal final, 4-0, with Borrett bagging six goals in one match against USA.

Norman sadly passed away in December 2004, but his wife Mullie still lives in the Essex seaside town. She was 16 when she first met him in 1936:

"I knew him when he'd just been up at Cambridge University for a year," she recalls: "He was full of fun and that's what attracted me to him."

Mullie today: reading about the Olympics

"When we got engaged he said: 'You realise my sport comes first!' and I said: 'Oh yes, I do know that.' I didn't worry. I'd always been used to him playing something or other and it didn't mean a thing too me. When someone says that to you, I'd have been surprised if it was anything else!"

Educated at Framlingham College in Suffolk he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. Following service in the Army during the Second World War he became a schoolmaster first at Allhallows School, in Devon, and then between 1950 and 1980 at Framlingham.

Now 89-years-old, Mullie hasn't often had Norman's newspaper cuttings and memorabilia听out of her garage. She says: "I think he told me he'd been selected, I think by then he was quite serious at that stage. I only watched one hockey match unfortunately, but I did see the opening ceremony which was something I wanted to do very much.

1948 hockey programme for the final

Being at Wembley for this spectacular occasion stays with Mullie to the present day: "It was something terrific, it was like going to a pop concert and seeing the athletes and people. The fanfare and everything that went with it, seeing the chap with the torch running in and lighting the flame. To me it was absolutely wonderful.

1948 newspaper article

"I saw Norman playing and I think he scored a goal - I'm sure he did. Certainly I did watch more England matches as it was easier to get to those games.

On Norman's achievements she's not surprised: "People say that, but I never thought anything about it - That's what you like doing - do it! My family were all very interested in Norman's sport, but his family weren't quite so much - except his brother-in-law who played a bit of hockey.

Norman Porter was a pupil at Framlingham College in the 1950s, who went on to play hockey for Scotland and win around a dozen caps for the country.

Norman Porter played hockey for Scotland

He remembers the first time he met Norman and notes that along with sport he also taught another subject: "Probably as a geography teacher, and his syllabus used to revolve around the wine producing regions of France!"

He says: "It was like the iceberg effect, we knew the top bit of what he'd achieved. But we had no idea of the scope and range of his achievements. We knew he was good but we had no idea he was THAT good and it's only in later life that you find out how long he was squash champion and what a privilege it had been to be taught by him."

Borrett first won the English Amateur Squash Championship in 1946 and then dominated the tournament for the next five years. This achievement is made more remarkable by the knowledge that squash took place mainly in London and he had no squash courts to play on as he was living in Devon during this period.

For Norman Porter, his teacher had an influence on encouraging him to play hockey:

"You didn't realise what you had picked up out of habit - the level of competitive hockey you had played because of the Framlingham fixture list. And go outside the college and suddenly you find yourself being selected for all sorts of different things."听

The sport was very different in those days: "The sticks were long and thin and you had roll ins rather than hit ins when the ball went out of play. Many hockey clubs were either side of cricket pitches and the kit and players couldn't happen until the circket had finished. The goal keepers were often wicket-keppers and they'd use the same pads, none of this astronaut stuff they have today."

Norman Borrett in cricketing whites

As for Norman Borrett, Norman Porter remembers him as: "The total embodiment of the Corinthian spirit."

Other students under Norman Borrett include England pace bowler David Larter who played in 10 Tests during the 1960s.

Born in 1917 Borrett also achieved three first-class appearances for Essex County Cricket Club with the last coming in August 1946.

Mullie goes on to explain: "It used to be if you were quite a good county tennis player as Norman was, you'd get an invitation to play at Wimbledon. That was then and he just couldn't do everything, so he didn't go! He wanted to take up golf as a professional in later life."

1948 ticket for the hockey tournament

But he never had a special diet, Mullie continues: "He liked his food, as he was a hopeless cook! The only thing he used to do was always training. He had a special thing for training and he'd run slow across the goal line and then tear up the side lines. And I'd say: 'You'll do something to that heart of yours' and he'd say: 'I've always done this.'"

Summing up, Norman Porter says: "The more I've discovered about him the more I can see why the Times described him as 'Probably Britain's most talented postwar all-round amateur sportsman."

Sport still produces talented all-rounders such as Rebecca Romero, but it's unlikely we'll see anyone like Norman Borrett playing so many different sports at such a high competitive level again.