About Sport and Life

Sport and Life Cheltenham and Gloucester is produced by Draper Media Ltd, a family run business founded by Carla and Teddy Draper in 2015. 

Carla is a graphic designer who has worked across all types of creative media for more than 20 years. And in 2025 she had the idea of amplifying husband Teddy’s podcast Sport and Life with its own website.

But whereas the podcast featured interviews with people from across the world the new vision was a feature-interview site devoted to the people of Cheltenham, Gloucester and the surrounding towns and villages. 

This was largely because Carla and Teddy live in Cheltenham. Carla on and off since 1998, Teddy with Carla since 2013, and their daughter was born in Gloucester in 2014. They wanted to celebrate and uplift the community with positive stories about the area.

But also looking at the podcast listens, Teddy, who’s day job has been a Sky Sports presenter since 2007, realised there was a real hunger for those close-to-home interviews: 

“It was powerful to see the interest in the local interviews. An ex or current Cheltenham Town player might get more listens than a former England rugby player and it made me think that so many of us miss that big local media presence we grew up with. 

“I remember my u12 football reports being in my local paper, The Malvern Gazette, when I was growing up, just up the road from here. In the internet era a lot of the human interest local coverage has been lost. 

What we want to do is bring a little bit of that special feeling of connection, familiarity and awareness to Cheltenham and Gloucester. It’s also an amazing way for Carla and I to feel more connected to the people who live around us.”

And so the aim of Sport and Life is, on one hand, to do a good job getting to know the people playing and coaching the professional sports teams in this part of the world.

There’s so much flux every season at clubs like Cheltenham Town FC and this is a platform for people to get to know new players, their backgrounds, their personalities and how they’re enjoying this beautiful area. 

But another aim is to profile impressive local non sports pros with great stories and helpful information to share – whether they’re personal trainers, doctors, farmers, nutritionists or carpenters. Or just someone with a good story to tell. 

Sport and Life Cheltenham and Gloucester is about people and their stories. The hope is you find these features uplifting, interesting and worth sharing with your friends and family. 

Please help to support Sport and Life by following us on Instagram, many thanks.

If you’d like to get in touch with us please email hello@drapermedia.co.uk

Carla and Teddy