Tributes have flowed in from around the country and abroad for John Pollard, the former sports editor of the Times Series newspapers, who died of pneumonia in Barnet Hospital last Thursday, aged 70.

John joined the paper as deputy to then sports editor Fred Harris in 1960 and played a leading role in the sporting life of the borough of Barnet for 46 years until his retirement. He was a popular and respected figure.

He briefly left the Times in my time as editor in the Seventies when we had union problems, which John hated, and he switched to the Barnet Press series.

Unfortunately, the Press, too, encountered problems and John found himself standing on a picket line. One Sunday morning soon afterwards he knocked on the front door of my home in Hendon and asked if he could come back. He was welcomed with open arms.

Initially, John covered Finchley FC alongside John Motson, the TV commentator who was then working for the Barnet Press.

He later switched to Barnet FC and covered them home and away during the seesaw Stan Flashman and Barry Fry days, including their elevation to the Football League in the Nineties.

Mr Harris, who John eventually succeeded, worked alongside him for years. He said this week: “He never had a bad word to say about anyone. We never had cross words.”

Typical of the tributes to John on the Barnet FC website this week, one said: “He was a fine journalist and a true gentleman.” He would also have liked the description “an old-school journalist”.

John’s greeting to all was “hello matey”. He relived games travelling home with supporters in a coach after matches, meticulous to detail and always seeking accuracy.

John — who leaves a widow, Ann, whom he married in 2003, a brother, Anthony, and two sisters, Shirley and Carol — was a devotee of Chelsea FC and having a flutter on the horses.

Typical of the man was that when a niece developed muscular dystrophy, he paid for the family to travel to Disneyland in the USA.

John, admittedly not outstanding as a participant, played football with John Motson and other press colleagues in the Roving Reporters XI. He scored one goal — “with my wrong foot, too”, he recalled.

John spent two years in the RAF in his youth. He said he was a “Frank Spencer-type” serviceman. He found his true niche as an important member of the Times’ editorial teams.