JIM EVANS has seen them come and go at The Stoop in their droves since he joined Harlequins from Thurrock seven years ago. So much so that, despite being only 27, he is Harlequins’ longest-serving player, with he and hooker Tani Fuga, who joined six months later, providing the only links in a coaching chain that extends from Zinzan Brooke to John Kingston (now forwards coach), through to Mark Evans (now chief executive), before Dean Richards took charge two years ago.

In fact, Evans is the closest thing Harlequins have had to a club stalwart since Dick Best, who, in the amateur era, was chief bottle-washer, cook, utility forward and coach at the club before he started winning Grand Slams for England.

Essex boy Evans is a chip off the same block, even buying a bungalow 300 metres from the ground, where he now lives with his fiancée, Rebecca, and Spike, his pet Jack Russell. “It was derelict, but I bought it with a bit of help from my parents, and I enjoy DIY so I got stuck in and renovated it. It’s handy on match days when we are at home, or if I want some physio, because it’s only a two-minute walk away,” Evans says.

Loyalty is a prized virtue in his book, and he cherishes his association with Quins and their supporters. “It feels like home. I’d love to do what Lawrence Dallaglio has done at Wasps and stay with them for my entire career.” His attachment to the club started with the six-month contract he was given after Hika Reid, the All Black hooker who coached Thurrock, turned him from a centre to a lock and then recommended him to Quins.

“I didn’t enjoy school. I got in with the wrong crowd and also suffered a bit of dyslexia. I left at 16 to become a diesel fitter mechanic in Tilbury for a couple of years. But since I came here I have never wanted to go anywhere else. The club, and Mark Evans in particular, have been fantastic. I’ve had two shoulder reconstructions and they stuck by me, so I’ve stuck by them.”

Through thick and thin are words he could have added, but the 6ft 7in, 17st Evans, who is very mobile and one of the best middle jumpers in the Premiership, is not one for blowing his own trumpet. However, he says Quins’ relegation from the Premiership two years ago was the making of the club, and him. “It pulled the team and fans together, and made us more resilient. Before we were relegated we thought it wouldn’t happen to us, that we were too big a club. Going down made us realise how important every game is, and how hard you must work for every point.” Evans says that a year in National One was exactly the sort of rough-house he needed. “Deano [Richards] told me I had to be more streetwise and said it would be more physical and aggressive, with plenty of off-the-ball stuff. He was right, and we had to take them on up front so we could use our pace out wide. There was a lot more fisticuffs, almost every match, and you had to stand up.”

The upshot was promotion and a seventh-place finish on their return to the Premiership, with the reward of Heineken Cup qualification, while Evans, who played for England at U21 level, was part of the starting lineup for the England Saxons in their Churchill Cup win last May. So suggest to Evans that nobody expects Harlequins to emerge ahead of Parisian giants Stade Français in Pool Three of the Heineken Cup and he is having none of it.

“If people think we are underdogs, fantastic. It is great to go into this tournament not being given the credit for what you have done over the past couple of seasons. These are the sort of games where you put down a marker. People will be watching.” Evans believes that if Stade take Quins lightly when they meet at Stade Jean-Bouin on Saturday they will pay.

“We have played a lot of rugby, but most of the guys are rested so we will be completely match-fit and well drilled, whereas Stade may be getting used to playing together again.”

The words are those of a loyal club man, and in Evans’s case they are being backed up by deeds.