FAMILY, friends, classmates, teammates and teachers gathered to pay their respects to a kind and caring Pershore teenager who died suddenly on Christmas Eve.

Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Scott Holden yesterday at Pershore Abbey.

Mourners stood silently as the 16-year-old’s coffin was carried into the church to Ben E King’s Stand by Me.

It was draped with flag of his favourite team, Liver-pool, upon which his football boots had been poignantly placed.

In an emotional tribute, Clive Corbett, headteacher of Pershore High School, said the promising pupil would forever live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew him.

He said: “I am privileged and humbled to stand here this afternoon on behalf of so many to pay tribute to Scott Holden, a fine young man whose life was cut so tragically short.

“Our human lives are enriched by the people that we meet, and in our lifetimes we will love and lose people who are so important to us that they take a part of us with them when they pass on. We certainly feel this with Scott.

“We are like flames, lit to flicker briefly until we pass on into the shadows of eternity. But however brief their earthly presence might be, some shine so brightly that the world will always remember their illumination. I know from what many people have told me this is the case with Scott.” Mr Corbett also read out dozens of tributes from Scott’s fellow pupils and teachers, which will be placed in a book and presented to his family.

Teammates who played alongside the talented footballer in Drakes Broughton Rangers Football Club’s under-16s side described him as a star “shining down on us” and said that he would “always be part of our family”.

Candles were lit among the congregation as Liverpool FC’s theme You’ll Never Walk Alone played out shortly before the service ended.

Players formed a guard of honour as Scott’s coffin and mourners left the abbey.

Scott was found dead in his bedroom at the family home in Newlands on Christmas Eve. An inquest has been opened and adjourned.

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