HE’S one of the most-recognisable faces in sport, though he is far from happy at his recent re-emergence into the public eye. David Bedford, world record breaker, London Marathon race director and anti-drugs campaigner was also the unwilling inspiration for the 118 118 ‘Got your number’ campaign. And it’s cost him £60,000, leaving him bitter, frustrated and angry, despite an Ofcom judgement in his favour.

‘They stole my image. They lied. They got found out and they were told they could not use it again. It cost me £60,000 in court fees. And I have not received one penny in compensation. I hope that people use any directory enquiries number except theirs and I hope that they go very bankrupt very soon,’ he said.

No half-measures there, then.

‘The annoying thing is, if they had asked me whether they could use my image I would have said yes and it would not have cost them very much.

‘But they did it without my consent and then tried to tell me that it was someone else.

‘I don’t wish to sound arrogant, but of course it was me. I have pictures of when I broke the world record and I was wearing a white vest with two red hoops and light-blue shorts with gold trim. How dare they lie?

‘I don’t take myself seriously and if they had approached me I could have handled being parodied – blimey, I have made myself look a fool all on my own so often anyway.’

With the trademark drooping moustache now flecked with grey and the wild-man hair trimmed and looking very salt-and-pepper, Bedford has the air of a respectable middle-ager. However, there’s no doubt that he was a tearaway in younger days.

Talking about the advert was the only time Bedford allowed himself to sound negative.

Even when discussing drug cheats or the decline in the fitness levels of British youngsters, the former hard-running, tough-talking champion found a positive angle.

His forthright views won him a cult following in his prime, which was cut short by injury after a brief and highly popular spell in the 1970s.

Despite a world record at 10,000m and three British records at different distances, Bedford never won a major track championship his ability deserved.

Born in Hendon on 30 December 1949, Bedford started running when he was 14.

Success in the 1969 International Junior Cross-Country Championship announced his arrival on the middle-distance scene. Next year he produced a stunning double, winning the Southern (English) Cross-Country Championships junior title, then, 20min. later, the senior title.

Then came the first of five consecutive AAA 10,000m crowns.

In 1971 there was international cross-country triumph, a 3,000m steeplechase British record and a 5000m best.

During that year, he held every British record, from 2,000m to 10,000m.

Munich 1972 was a disappointing Olympics but he bounced back the following year when he sliced nearly eight seconds off Lasse Viren’s 10,000m best, crossing the line at Crystal Palace in 27min. 30.80sec.

When injury forced his retirement, administration was the logical step, he said, though he spent three years as a PE teacher in a secondary school and then he bought and ran two Luton nightclubs.

He has served on the committees of the International Athletics Club, the World Cross-Country Championships, the British Athletics Federation, the BAF medical commission, the London Marathon Charitable Trust and is currently the race director for the London Marathon.

He does not overly regret hanging up his competitive running shoes.

‘Would I want to be young again? The best thing about being young is being good at sport. Nothing in your life could ever beat that; being young and being able to compete is very exciting.

‘But there is little point in competitive running when you are getting older: all you are doing is seeing who is getting older slowest.

‘My career was finished when I was 24 through injury, so I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of deciding when it was the right time to stop.

‘I had a following, I was seen to be a bit different, so it wasn’t easy to stop running but it allowed me to get involved early in administration. The marathon – if ever there has been a perfect job for me it is as race director of the London Marathon.

‘You could argue that there are 33,000 different races being run at one time. Standing at the finish line is was one of the most emotional things you can do.

‘You see all these people coming past, people whom you would normally say would be so unlikely to finish a marathon and they all have and they’ve all achieved something.

‘For them it’s the same level as winning the Olympic Games.

‘Everyone knows someone who has run the marathon. I first did it as a fun runner in 1981. It is now the biggest annual fund-raising event in the world.

‘Chris Brasher, when he founded it, said you can go to watch a cup final, but you can’t step on the pitch, you can go to Wimbledon, but you can’t play on centre court, but London you can run in the same place and at the same time on the same course as Olympic champions.

‘And everyone taking part can have that dream that if they run the race of their life, they might just turn the corner to find themselves alongside the best in the world.’

Bedford was at the centre of a huge row at this year’s marathon when top GB runner Jon Brown complained very openly about not being offered appearance money. Brown, who was fourth in the Sydney Olympics, also walked out of a press conference with Bedford over sponsorship wrangles – he wanted to wear his Nike vest instead of the Flora London Marathon one.

Bedford stood firm. He could not offer Brown any money, he said, because the organisers were already well over their elite field budget.

The spat escalated when Brown said that he would run the race, but as slowly as he could.

At the time, Bedford called Brown’s actions ‘the worst behaviour that we have come across at any time’.

‘The Jon Brown incident could have left a bad taste in the mouth if we had not handled it the way we did.

‘Jon will one day I’m sure regret what he said. The event is always bigger than one person. What happened said so much about the heart and soul of the race.’

Bedford is similarly unmoveable on the subject of drugs in the sport.

‘We are the only area of athletics that has not been blighted. When we announced that we would be block testing all the elite athletes, the cynics and pessimists warned us that we would have people staying away. But we didn’t – all the big names came: Radcliffe, Gebrselassie. We had the best entry list ever.

‘Drugs testing is not a witch hunt. However, sport will not tolerate this any more. Athletics has to maintain its integrity.’

As a runner of the ‘golden age’ of British middle- and long-distance running, Bedford would dearly love a return to that success. It is not too distant, he said.

‘It is amazing how little it would take to turn the corner. Paula Radcliffe is an inspiration to British women. They can see that it is possible for someone to compete at that level.

‘Coaches had previously said that we were not good enough to compete with the Africans, or if we were, it was because of drugs. But Paula is a clean, honest, hard-working and successful athlete.’