GENERATIONS of amateur soccer players in and around Worcester owe much to the likes of 78 years-old Bert Powell, who selflessly devoted half-a-century of voluntary service to local football.

In 1996, he was presented with a special medal to mark his 50 years with the Worcester and District Football League. He was its chairman for about 20 years.

It is not only amateur footballers who should be thankful to Bert but also many hundreds of young people. Bert and his late wife Mary invested heavily of their spare time over many years in running youth activities both in Worcester and at Droitwich.

Mrs Powell, who trained and danced in the Royal Ballet, also ran a dance and ballet school in Droitwich for about 15 years.

I recently spent time chatting to Bert at his Scafell Close bungalow in Worcester and learned all about what he described as his "marvellous times" in the sphere of local football.

It all began in the mid-1940s when Bert assisted the late Walter Bullock, a schools attendance officer, in running the Gorse Hill Youth Club. Bert also helped manage the Gorse Hill football team and became club secretary. It was around this time too that he took to the field as a soccer referee.

He was soon elected on to the management and executive committees of the Worcester and District Football League, which then administered at least eight amateur football divisions in and around the city. Bert was also to be league chairman for more than two decades.

He and wife Mary set up home in Droitwich, though this certainly didn't stop Bert running his youth and football clubs at Gorse Hill. He would commute from the Spa town to Worcester either by bike or motorcycle.

He and his wife also had much to do with the organising of shows and concert parties by the young people of Gorse Hill and with activities generally in the Gorse Hill Community Centre.

In the late 1960s, however, Bert and Mary switched their voluntary service from Gorse Hill to running the Methodist Youth Club in Worcester Road, Droitwich.

Mary Powell was from the White family of Fernhill Heath. Her parents were smallholders and ran a cut flowers stall for several years in The Shambles Market Hall at Worcester.

Mary won a place to train with the Royal Ballet and danced with this prestigious international company during and after the war years. Margot Fonteyn joined the Royal Ballet shortly after Mary to begin her legendary dance career.

Mary was also extremely proud throughout her life to have been in the classic film, Red Shoes, albeit in the corps de ballet around the star and prima ballerina, Moira Shearer.

Family and friends were always amused to learn from Mary that she firmly refused to wear a tin hat while living in and walking around wartime London. Instead, she carried a cushion for head protection in air raids, considering this would be better in softening any blows!

After a comparatively short professional career in ballet, Mary was to pass on her expertise to aspiring youngsters by running a ballet school in Ombersley Street, Droitwich through the 1950s and up to about 1965.

She then ran a general stores in Ombersley Road, Worcester for about 10 years until 1976, commuting from the family home in Droitwich. During the 1970s too, an expert sideline of Mary's was making superb wedding dresses.

Alas, she died two years ago.

Bertram Powell (to give him his full Christian name) was born in Worcester, the son of William and Agnes Powell, who lived in Church Road, Brickfields. William Powell spent most of his working life as a craftsman in shoe-making, and Bert remembers being taken to Pitchcroft several times to watch his father play in evening matches as a member of the George Street Methodist Church cricket team.

Bert went to Samuel Southall School and then became a machine tool engineer with Archdales. He left at one stage to try his hand as a bread roundsman, though it didn't turn out to be a success. He therefore returned to Archdales until the company closed down, then finished his working career with some years at the Longbridge car plant.

Bert and Mary Powell had three children - Bruce who lives with his father and is a driver with First Midland Red, Margaret (Mrs Allison) of Drakes Broughton, and Martin, who won the Military Medal in Northern Ireland and now lives in Wolverhampton, where he is an Air Ambulance controller.

Bert Powell looks back on a life much devoted to amateur football and youth work and says he was privileged to experience "marvellous times, the like of which can never be repeated today".

He obviously spent untold hours watching - and enjoying - football.

Son Bruce says that his parents "jelled" as an ideal combination in their voluntary service. Bert invested his time in football organisation and youth work while Mary taught dance and helped organise and produce shows by young people to be staged in the city, at Droitwich and around the county. Mary made a lot of the costumes for the shows, and the couple were also involved in many community activities and carnival events.