When newly reformed 80s ska-pop band The Police play in Paris later this month, a 54-year-old Frenchman will be in the audience reflecting on his place in history as another "also ran," someone who helped found a group but who left before the big time.

"I'll have tears in my eyes," former guitarist Henry Padovani told AFP. "It is part of my life and I am part of theirs."

Padovani, from the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, arrived in London as a 24-year-old in December 1976 in the midst of the punk music wave in Britain at the time.

He met a drummer called Stewart Copeland and a bassist nicknamed Sting with whom he formed The Police in January 1977.

The three-piece group released their first single in March, Fall Out, before a second guitarist, Andy Summers, joined in June. The arrival of Summers spelled the end for Padovani and tension between the two guitar players led to his ousting over the summer of 1977.

Shortly afterwards, the band released the single 'Roxanne', a worldwide hit that marked the beginning of the group's rise to global fame.

Padovani, who could be forgiven for rancour, is stoic, even lighthearted, about his fate, which shares striking similarities to that of Pete Best. Best was fired and replaced by Ringo Starr as the drummer of the Fab Four before they went on to global stardom in the 1960s.

"I thank Heaven everyday! Why would I be frustrated? Because I'm not in the rock dictionary? I couldn't give a damn," laughs Padovani, who admits nonetheless that he enjoys being part of a question in quiz game Trivial Pursuit.

After leaving The Police, he went on to join the band Wayne County and the Electric Chairs and founded his own group, the Flying Padovani's, during a long career in the music industry.

He also played with rock legend Pete Townshend and 80s band The Pretenders, was a vice-president of record label IRS, which signed R.E.M and Fine Young Cannibals, and has since become manager for several bands.

"We are the worst group on the planet"

Padovani is still in contact with his former bandmates, who he considers friends, and receives regular updates on the world tour.

"At the beginning it was 'catastrophic tour, we are the worst group on the planet but people seem to like it.'," he says.

"Little by little it has become 'Super show, it's taking shape'."

The Police surprised everyone earlier this year when they announced their reconciliation after more than 20 years apart.

Sting and Stewart Copeland once came to blows during a tour of the United States and reportedly refused to be in the same studio together when recording a "best of" album in 1986.

Padovani visited the notoriously explosive musicians while they practiced in Italy before the start of the tour, which began in Canada in May and includes more dates in Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific region in the months ahead.

The same tensions that led the band to split in 1986 were evident as the group began playing again in Italy.

"It was difficult between Sting and Stewart," he says. "Stewart had always dreamed of the reunion but as soon as it happened he started behaving again as if it was his group.

"I told him 'stop breaking everyone's balls. You can't mess this up'."

While Sting and Copeland will pack Paris's biggest stadium for two nights on September 29 and 30, Padovani, who has written an autobiography called "Secret Police Man," is on a smaller tour in France playing his latest music.

His album, "A croire que c'etait pour la vie" (Believing it would have been for life), features a single "Welcome Home" on which his illustrious friends and former bandmates play.