Newbury football legend presented with commemorative bench

Doug Cook has refereed for local schools for over half-a-century

After 60 years of being at the heart of football and refereeing in Newbury, Doug Cook was presented with a special bench at his home.

Mr Cook has been involved in organising and refereeing football matches at many different levels and, more recently, he has been running the Newbury District Primary Schools FA indoor five-a-side leagues for girls and boys aged seven to 11.

The former Park House PE teacher had every intention of carrying on his work with schools, but due to the coronavirus pandemic he had to reconsider.

He said: "It was unfortunate really when Covid hit because every Wednesday from September through to Easter, I was at Trinity Sports Hall doing indoor five-a-side for the primary schools.

"It covered about 800 children all together and we were just on the last day of completing it for this year, back in March.

"When I saw all the rules and regulations that were made by the Government, I knew that we couldn't carry on."

Mr Cook, who is now 81 years old, knew that it would be difficult to continue and after announcing he would be stopping, he has received a lot of gratitude.

"I have done 60 years of working in school football in the Newbury area and 45 of those were when I was doing the indoor five-a-side," he said.

"I wrote to all the schools that took part and since then I have had some very nice letters for everything that I have done."

Mr Cook still referees in the Newbury area as he officiates at Trinity School on Mondays and Thursdays in six-a-side leagues.

"I am still involved, but with schools football it was obvious that they weren't going to go back into competition and I decided to step back," he said.