Former England football captain Bryan Robson today joined hundreds of mourners at a funeral service for Bali bomb blast victim Ian Findley, who was killed trying to shield a friend from the blast.

Mr Findley, 55, a garage owner from West Pelton, near Chester-le-Street, County Durham, was with a group of friends on the sunshine isle when the explosions ripped apart the Sari Club, in Kuta, last month.

It emerged today that former Manchester United midfielder and one-time Middlesbrough manager Bryan Robson, himself born in Chester-le-Street, was a distant relative of Mr Findley.

He joined Mr Findley's 81-year-old mother Lorraine and her other children, including son Brian, 52, from Derby, who flew to Indonesia to identify his brother's body.

The service was held in the parish church of St Mary's and St Cuthbert's, Chester-le-Street, where rector the Rev Kevin Dunne spoke of Mr Findley as the ''world's oldest teenager''.

He told the packed 15th Century church: ''He was a real character and the life and soul of any party.

''He was like the world's oldest teenager and used to work to go on holiday.''

Also at the service was survivor Ian Stafford, friend and fellow businessman of Mr Findley, who was saved by the victim's shielding actions.

Mr Stafford, 41, of Annfield Plain, County Durham, returned to England in the wake of the blast with more than 120 stitches in his wounds.

At the time he told how he would also have died had it not been for the actions of Mr Findley, a father of one. The Bali bomb blast claimed the lives of more than 180 people including more than 30 Britons.