A 56-year-old footballer died last night after collapsing during a charity match.

John Noddings's wife, son and daughter - a police officer - rushed to the middle of the field after the player fell to the ground at Tow Law, County Durham.

Referee Nigel Miller, a police sergeant and qualified first-aider, said that Mr Noddings was unconscious but still breathing when he reached him.

"We put him in the recovery position then began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage. He never recovered consciousness," said Mr Miller.

Ambulancemen, who arrived after 20 minutes, continued first-aid before Mr Noddings was taken to hospital. His wife, Marilyn, son, Mark, and daughter, Jeanette, went with him in the ambulance.

The incident happened after 25 minutes of the match between Tow Law and Weardale Select teams.

Mr Noddings, playing for Weardale, had been among the first to volunteer for the match. "He was running around like the 11-year-old I remembered in the school team at Tow Law Secondary Modern," said match organiser Charlie Donaghy, his former teacher.

Weardale team's manager, Tony Monkhouse, said: "He was a lovely man who would do anything to help any worthy cause in the dale, but most of all he was football daft."

Mr Noddings lived at Westgate in Weardale.

The match, which was to raise money for a memorial garden at Wolsingham School and the Butterwick Hospice in Bishop Auckland, was abandoned.

Mr Donaghy, chairman of Wolsingham School Governors, said he was "absolutely devastated".