HAVING seen and selected the very best in a glittering football coaching career, which has seen him grace some of the top stadia in the world and meet many ex-professionals, a Lowestoft man has been honoured with a special award.

HAVING seen and selected the very best in a glittering football coaching career, which has seen him grace some of the top stadia in the world and meet many ex-professionals, a Lowestoft man has been honoured with a special award.

Terry Moore is in an 'extremely prestigious' position of being one of just 29 people across the 'whole country' to have been awarded life membership of the English Schools Football Association.

Having now completed a remarkable 47 years of service - between 1962 and 2009 - with the ESFA, Mr Moore has been basking in the success of this most recent award, seven years after collecting a prestigious 40 years Long Service Award from the association in recognition of all his efforts.

The former Kirkley High School teacher - who taught Mathematics, Physics and Technology for over 30 years - reflected on his achievements this week.

Having been involved with coaching at schoolboy, district, county, regional and national levels over his complete teaching career, the likes of former England captain's Terry Butcher and Michael Owen are just two top-class names to have been selected by Moore at youth level.

And being the current ESFA field officer for Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, the treasurer of South East ESFA (which covers 12 counties), the vice president of the Suffolk County Schools FA, vice president of Essex County Schools FA and the secretary/treasurer of the Lowestoft and North Suffolk Schools FA team, he has also held many high ranking positions in the ESFA in the last 40 years.

As well as coaching a number of teams up to county level with a great deal of success, Moore has also been a past national council member and an U15 international selector.

Moore chaired the selection committee in 1994-95 with a team that included Owen, Wes Brown and Michael Ball and he was also a selector in the only England U15 squad that won every game in 1993-94.

But he shows no signs of stopping either, in a remarkable career. 'I hope to reach 50 years,' he told The Journal.

'I was delighted to have been awarded life membership as it such an extremely prestigious position to have even been nominated for and not a lot of people have done it.'

Mr Moore still attends regular meetings across the counties, but with no district football in Lowestoft and North Suffolk any more he has recently surprised two Lowestoft-based teachers that have shone out of the classroom with voluntary service.

Michael Boast and Paul Wilkinson have been honoured in school assemblies with 25 year ESFA medallions as reward for their efforts and service locally and across the county.

Mr Boast, from Lothingland Middle School, has been hailed by Moore as 'meticulous in his work' as he organises all the middle school league and cup football competitions for nine to 13-year-olds.

Mr Wilkinson, from Denes High School, is chairman of the Lowestoft and North Suffolk Schools FA, and in a glittering coaching career he has been the former U14 manager as well as being involved with county teams as team manager 'for a lot of years.' This has seen him be the U14, U15 and U18 county schools manager with unrivalled success.

'Paul was the manager that won the national U18 county trophy twice in four years,' Moore said.

For all his love of football, Mr Moore is also 'heavily involved' in cricket across Norfolk - as the former Lowestoft Town cricketer is the county treasurer and on the Carter Cup committee amongst a raft of positions he still holds.

And despite all these meetings he attends in both sports, he has still found time to swing into action with a new sport.

'I took up golf at the age of 67 and play three times a week at Rookery Park GC now,' Moore said.