Friends have walked the Yorkshire Three Peaks to raise more than £2,000 in memory of a man who died after a football game.

Thirty-year-old Leon Tennett, of Clayton, died of a heart attack following a five-a-side match with his friends.

His best friend John Graves has continued to stay in touch with Mr Tennett’s mum Jeanie Lambert, who runs a Bradford social club for adults with disabilities called The Linkklub, and as the tenth anniversary of the tragedy approached, he decided to organise a sponsored hike to mark it.

Mr Graves, who runs The Loft Cafe in Bingley and had grown up with Mr Tennett since being at Cubs together, was joined by other friends who all took on the challenge with Mrs Lambert and some members of The Linkklub also walking part of the way.

Shortly before Mr Tennett’s death, he and Mr Graves had been due to go on holiday together to New York.

“Leon was a perfectly healthy, fit lad. He’d been playing five-a-side with friends and had just come off the pitch when he had a massive heart attack. It was so sudden he just fell to the ground, he didn’t have time to put his arms out,” said Mr Graves, who wears Mr Tennett’s designer watch on special occasions in memory of him.

“Leon’s parents gave me the watch – it’s a little bit of him still with me. He’ll never be forgotten but we just wanted to do something special ten years on for him and for his mum and help a cause so close to her heart.”

Now the money will be used to update the Linkklub’s DJ system and go towards its annual pantomime trip and the summer outing to the coast.

The popular social club meets every second and fourth Wednesday from 7pm to 9pm at Northcliffe Church Hall, Shipley, and has done since the 1970s.

Over the years its membership has escalated but it totally relies on self-funding and all its volunteers are unpaid.

“To receive this amount of money, coming from a spark of an idea of John Graves whom I have known since he befriended my son as a young boy is amazing,” said Mrs Lambert, whose daughter Janine is also a member.

Anyone interested in fundraising for The Linkklub or making a donation should either call Mrs Lambert on 07762 761286 or e-mail her at lambert216@ hotmail.co.uk.