A long-standing basketball coach has been honoured for her work with a lifetime achievement award by Herts Sports Partnership at their annual awards ceremony.

Over the past 45 years, Di Charles, from Royston, has dedicated her time to Corvus Cornix Basketball Club through many roles including secretary, chair, president, coach and official.

At present she is the secretary of the Royston club and still devotes six-10 hours every week to the club and this increases to 10-16 hours during league competition weeks.

Greneway School assistant headteacher, Terry Graves, said: “Di is the glue that keeps the whole club together and maintains all the high standards of behaviour, conduct and fairplay that the club stands for.

“The young people involved in the club would not have experienced the learning opportunities and fun without her input.

“As far as I am aware, Di has never received any award recognising her outstanding contribution to basketball. She took a lot of convincing to let me nominate her!”