A MUCH-LOVED postman is to be remembered at a charity football tournament held in his honour.

Don MacKechnie, of Middlesbrough, was 55 when he died in May.

His work colleagues are holding the inaugural Don MacKechnie Memorial Cup to raise money for Teesside Hospice which helped look after Mr MacKechnie.

Mr MacKechnie’s widow, Christine, also 55, said her husband “would have been totally amazed” by the event, and expressed her gratitude to the organisers.

She said: “It’s so nice to know his memory is going to live on like this. He was a very popular man and he loved it when my two girls, his step-daughters, had children. He didn’t want to be called granddad and they would call him ‘the king’, which made us all laugh. "Now they call me, ‘grandma king.’ Everyone loved Don.”

Mrs MacKechnie said they had been together seven years, and were married a year ago. Mr MacKechnie, originally from Liverpool, contracted malignant melanoma for the second time just weeks after the marriage.

His friends, James Watson and Pete Sansum, met Mr MacKechnie through the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the union helped organise the tournament at the Goals Soccer Centre in Middlesbrough, which is taking place on Sunday, September 21.

Anyone wanting to register to play in the tournament or wanting more information should visit https://communityevent.everydayhero.com/uk/the-don-mackechnie-memorial-cup