A nine-foot paper sculpture of Weymouth footballing legend Dickie Borthwick has been unveiled to celebrate what young people love about the older generation.

Known as Britain's oldest footballer, Dickie, now 83, loved the artwork and said it bore an uncanny resemblance to himself.

The sculpture was unveiled on Primrose Hill in London.

He said: "I was amazed to see the likeness for myself. It was so real and everything was so detailed. The artist really is an expert in what he does and I couldn't stop looking at it.

"Everyone was lovely to work with, especially the artist. I went up to see him about a month ago and he must have taken about a hundred different photographs of me doing different poses from different angles.

"I'm glad it was a nice day because if it was raining it would have been ruined and if it had been windy it would have blown away."

The sculpture was commissioned by Stannah, famous for its stairlifts, which surveyed 2,000 UK adults aged 18-39 to find out what they admired about older people.

According to the poll, 22 per cent of youngsters admire those in their senior years because ‘they get to say what they want, when they want’ and 11 per cent admire how comfortable their elders are with their appearance as 'they wear their wrinkles with pride'.

Artist Papershake, real name Michael Trew, spent more than 150 hours completing the nine-foot tall paper effigy.

He said: “Paper is the perfect material to bring to life what we love about the older generation.

"The folds and angles not only bring out Dickie’s admirable character, they also represent the wonderful wrinkles that he says make him who he is.

"He was the perfect person to express the qualities that young people admire in older people. So much fun to work with and I am really glad he liked the sculpture."

Dickie has now hung up his football boots, only dusting them off for the odd charity game here and there, but he said he still feels young: "I have got a young mind and I'm trying to match my body up with it."