KIP Watson, the man who helped nurture football’s Phyllosan fraternity and who in 2001 won the Northern Echo Local Heroes award, has died just weeks short of his 97th birthday.

He was co-founder in 1980 of the Sunderland and District Over 40s League – the country’s first – kicking off with just six teams.

“People just laughed at us. I’m not saying there was nothing to laugh at,” he once observed.

Now the league has 73 teams and 2,000 registered players in an area stretching from mid-Northumberland to Redcar. Kip became its secretary, its figurehead, its mascot, its president and its improbable elixir of youth.

“He was a true visionary, a man of high moral and ethical standards who was loved and respected by very many people,” said former Premiership and Football League referee Ken Redfern, at 71 still officiating in the Over 40s.

An orphan from the day that he was born – his father had gone down with his ship, his mother died in childbirth – Kip was brought up by his grandparents in the shadow of Roker Park ,Sunderland FC’s former home.

His loyalty to the club was lifelong, including the 1937 FA Cup final at which he took along a bell – “solid brass, 6/6d” – and a VIP training ground visit last year at which he met then-manager Paulo di Canio. “A marvellous man, answered all my questions,” he said.

At 18, he and his uncle had also had a two-hour meeting with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini during a visit to Rome.

He played a few wartime games for Swindon Town – “I’d never have got a game if there hadn’t been a war on” – bought and sold pit props back in the North-East and, at 50, graduated and became a teacher.

Among his biggest achievements was, with Ken Redfern’s help, persuading the FA and FIFA, the international governing body, to allow the Over 40s to use roll-on roll-off substitutes.

After relinquishing many of the secretarial duties following a stroke in 1999, he continued to appoint referees and vividly to chronicle the league’s fortunes in the local media. Men like the Flying Window Cleaner, the Aged Miner and Captain Flint (and his Pirates) became familiar to football followers of all ages.

“His personality was stamped on everything to do with the league. He was held in the most amazing affection,” said Vince Williams, the current league secretary.

“Without Kip, veterans’ football would probably never have taken off. He was a lovely man and a tireless worker,” said Durham County FA secretary John Topping, himself a former Over 40s league goalkeeper.

The 2001 Local Heroes award brought tears to many eyes, not just Kip’s. “Kip represents everything that grassroots sport should be,” said the citation.

He and his wife Mary, to whom he had been married for almost 70 years, had lived since 1953 in the same house in Fulwell, Sunderland. Funeral details have not yet been announced – ”but afterwards,” says his daughter Ghislaine, “at the Stadium of Light.”