FORMER school teacher, youth football supporter and president of The Old Blanfordians, John Paulley MBE, has died at the age of 88.

Born in Holywell near Evershot in October 1927, he was the oldest of two siblings with younger brother, Fred, arriving less than a year later.

At the age of three, the family moved close to Bradford Abbas where John attended the local primary school and won a scholarship to attend to Foster's School in Sherborne.

He passed the entry exam for Loughborough College of Physical Education and completed his national service by joining the Dorset Regiment.

Following basic training, he went to Northern Ireland where he served for six months in Belfast before being posted to Bulford in Wiltshire as a physical training instructor and was later promoted to corporal.

John met his future wife, Sally, in September 1948 and they went on to marry in August 1950, later welcoming a son, Alan. The couple shared more than 56 years together before her death in January 2007.

After returning to Loughborough following his basic teacher training in 1950, John took a teaching post at a secondary school before going back into higher education to do a further one-year diploma course in Physical Education and Games.

He moved back to Dorset in September 1952 to become head of boys' PE and games at Blandford Grammar School and later became the overall head of the same department.

He arranged a school trip for the children to go to the 1960s Olympics in Rome, where they got to meet Cassius Clay, the Olympic heavyweight boxing champion, as well as arranging another trip for them to attend the World Cup in England in 1966. In total, he was at Blandford School for 35 years and was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2003 in recognition of his work with young people.

Outside of the school, he became honorary treasurer of Dorset County Amateur Athletics Association and as a qualified FA coach, he also became honorary secretary of Dorset Schools Under 18s Football and became a selector for the England Under 18's Schools football team.

He went on to become chief coach for an annual course organised jointly by the Football Association and the Dorset County L.E.A, where he became friends with the former England captain and Arsenal Football Club manager, Billy Wright. He was also president of Blandford Opportunity Group, Blandford Amateur Boxing Club, Probus and Blandford Preetz Society, as well as a member of the Society of Dorset Men.

John died on May 23 after being ill for some time following a stroke.