GAZETTE & HERALD: TWO memorial benches are to be placed overlooking the cricket and football field in Box as a tribute to late grandfather Alec Cogswell.

His family wanted to honour him after he died aged 84 last July and decided on the benches because of his love for the two sports.

Son Graham, 52, who Mr Cogswell had lived with for the last 10 years of his life in Middlehill, said: "His first love was football but he was involved in cricket and was known as the big hitter. He had a reputation for hitting a lot of sixes.

"It seemed appropriate to have two benches looking over the fields."

Mr Cogswell set up Box Rovers Football Club after the war in 1947. He played well into the sixties and managed the team from 1970 to 1982.

After that he ran the line and still enjoyed watching his boys until he died, his son said.

"When he was younger he used to be a groundsman for five or six years. He grew up in Box, was in the RAF and the only time he was away was during the war," Mr Cogswell said. "A lot of his sporting memories come from there."

Graham's son Ben, 21, still plays cricket for Box when home from university in summer holidays.

The cricket bench will feature a quote from the Box book "100 Years of Village Cricket", which said, "No game was ever lost while Alec Cogswell was at the crease."

Mr Cogswell said that sums up how people felt about his father.