Leo Smith
Nominator: Mico Murphy    Category:  Sport

 LEO Smith has given up playing football at the age of 78. He played his final five-a-side match at Seaham Leisure Centre on his birthday yesterday.
Sunderland schoolboy Leo took to the pitch for the first time when he was 10, and apart from a five-year break when he was in the Navy during the Second World War, he has played ever since.
For the past 30 years Leo, from Albert Street, Seaham, has been a reliable player in a five-a-side team from Dempsey’s sports bar, missing only a handful of games.
The sprightly ex-bookie and publican says: "I knew I’d have to pack it in eventually but I wanted to call the shots rather than old age."