AN AWARD-WINNING youth football coach and BBC Sports Personality of the Year nominee has died.

Richard Owen lost his battle with cancer on July 4. He was 71.

He died peacefully at home in Wallingford.

His daughter Louise, 44, said: “He was a legend in his own lifetime, who touched many people’s lives and leaves a legacy to the youth of the area.”

It was in 1971 that Mr Owen’s son Paul, then aged eight, joined Crowmarsh Boys’ Football Club, later Crowmarsh Youth Football Club.

The following year Mr Owen took over as the manager of the team, and over 41 years served on the committee as vice chairman, treasurer, welfare officer, groundsman and youth development officer.

He was the first manager to take a team to Tilburg in Holland, and was an FA-qualified referee and youth development coach.

In 2011 he won the Oxfordshire FA award for Outstanding Contribution to Grass Roots Football.

That year he was also nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year’s Unsung Community Hero award, coming in the top three.

Born in Warwick on February 2, 1942, he grew up in Coventry at the height of the Second World War bombing raids on the city.

At 16 he joined the Royal Navy, starting as an apprentice artificer at HMS Fisgard at Torpoint in Cornwall, and went on to achieve the rank of Chief Petty Officer First Class REA.

He served on HMS Fearless and the aircraft carrier HMS Bulwark in the far east, travelling to Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

He remained a member of the Fisgard Association and recently organised a 50th reunion attended by fellow Fisgardians from around the world, some of whom attended his funeral.

While at HMS Fisgard Richard met his future wife Rose Holmes, now 69, originally from Saltash in Cornwalll.

They married on March 2, 1963, and celebrated their Golden Anniversary this year.

In 1970 he was invalided out of the Royal Navy with chronic arthritis and told that he could possibly be in a wheelchair within three years.

With exercise and determination he proved them wrong and found alternative employment working for Spring Grove Services in Henley as a Work Study Manager covering its laundry operations across the UK and Europe.

Despite having a stroke at 50 and retiring at 65, he refused to stop, and was still working part-time at Verco in Wallingford until he died.

In the 1980s he became a member of The Giffords amateur dramatics concert party, staging old time music hall, wartime and variety shows.

Richard and Rose also joined the Wallingford American Visiting Organising Committee (WAVOC), a link with Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1982, and later ran it together.

Their daughter Louise, said: “In addition to all his local voluntary work, he was also a very loving, supportive and generous family man.

“His wife, children Louise and Paul, 49, grandchildren Charlotte, 25, Dan, 23, James, 19, and his great grandchildren Eleanor, four, and 10-month-old Charlie, are very proud to have had him at the head of their family and to have shared so many happy times with him.”

His funeral was held on July 11 at St Mary’s Church’ Wallingford’ and was attended by people from the many facets of his working, voluntary and leisure life.