Former Sittingbourne footballer and much-loved town resident Ronald Austin has died at the age of 94.

He passed away peacefully at his home in Windmill Road on December 28.

Mr Austin was born in 1920 to parents Basil and Amy. He was the second youngest of four boys – Bernard, Basil and Harry – and the family lived in Key Street.

He left Milton Village School at 14 to become a butcher’s boy and later joined the Bowater Lloyd paper mill and became a player with the company’s football team.

Months after the Second World War began in 1939, Mr Austin, then aged 20, travelled to Rochester with a friend to enlist and fight for his country.

He completed his basic training and qualified to work as an RAF bomb disposal expert in the 6D squadron based in Duxford.

During a period of leave in 1942 he met his wife Joan at a ‘Sixpenny Hop’ clubhouse dance at Lloyd’s in his home town; an experience described by her as “love at first sight”.

One year before the war ended, Mr Austin was promoted to sergeant and became a disposal instructor stationed with the RAF in Doncaster, where Joan briefly joined him, before she returned to Sittingbourne.

During this time his prowess on the football field caught the eye of a number of people and he played with the RAF team and then signed a professional contract with Rotherham.

He remained in Doncaster until he was demobbed in 1946 and returned to his family to live in Kemsley.

As soon as he was back home and at his job at Bowater’s, he was asked to play for Sittingbourne, where he spent close to a decade.

A defining moment of his career was winning the Kent Senior Shield in 1953, shortly before he finished his playing career with the team and moved on to play for both Margate and Whitstable.

His son Maurice said of his father’s popularity among Sittingbourne residents: “We would walk to the town from our house on a Saturday to go to the football ground and if I was doing it on my own it would take 20 minutes. But if we walked together everyone wanted to stop and talk to him – it would take an hour and 20 minutes.

“He will be much missed. He always laughed, he was a comedian and he always had a smile.”

Mr Austin is survived by his wife and children Maurice, Gwenda and Lee.

His funeral will take place at 11am today at the Garden of England Crematorium in Bobbing.