Respected former cricket umpire and table tennis official Frank Townend has died aged 92.

He was president of the Huddersfield Umpires Association for six years – later an honorary life vice president – and he was chairman of the Huddersfield Table Tennis League for 10 years, playing the sport until he was 79.

Mr Townend, who leaves daughters Pauline and Judith, grandchildren Nicola, Christine and Edward and a great grandson Oliver (18 months), was married to wife Barbara for 59 years until her death in 2009. His funeral is today, with committal at Huddersfield Crematorium.

Born on January 26, 1922, at 16 Hawthorne Terrace, Crosland Moor, he was the younger of two brothers.

He went to Crosland Moor Church School and at 11 to Royds Hall Secondary, as it was then known.

He left school at 14 and got a job as assistant to Herbert Armitage, a Chartered Surveyor in Ramsden Street who advised councils in the Upper Agbrigg Area around Huddersfield.

In 1938, the family moved to 53 William Street. Crosland Moor, and three years later he joined the RAF and trained as a fitter armourer.

In 1942 he went abroad to India and joined 193 Bomber squadron, later serving in Singapore before being demobbed in June 1946.

When he returned to work, he studied and passed the examinations of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

He married Barbara Cousen at Oakes Baptist Chapel in 1949, and moved to Paddock.

The following year he joined the Inland Revenue Valuation Office in Huddersfield and, in the same year, passed the final examination of the Royal lnstitution of Chartered Surveyors.

After working for periods in Halifax and Sheffield, in 1966 he was transferred to Wakefield where eventually he became deputy District Valuer Wakefield and Pontefract.

He retired in 1985 and for a short time worked for the Estates Department of the West Riding County Council.

At the same time he entered into partnership with one of his sons-in-law, having stalls in Queensgate Market, Huddersfield, consisting of Market Hardware and Williams (tools and electrical), and also Borough Market Halifax (hardware). He retired from this in 2000, although he continued to do the accounts until 2007.

On the sporting side he had two loves, table tennis and cricket.

He was subscription secretary of the RAF Association for over 15 years and secretary of their table tennis teams from 1954 to 1985.

Chairman of the Huddersfield Table Tennis League from 1964 to 1974, he was also secretary for two years from 1975 and Inter-league secretary from 1970 to 1974.

He won the veterans table tennis singles title in 1965 and, at the age of 79, played a season and a half for Lockwood Conservative Club.

At cricket, before the Second World War, he joined Armitage Bridge juniors. After the war he played for Lockwood and then Paddock second teams.

In 1952 he joined the RAFA cricket team in the Huddersfield Association and played for them for about 15 years.

In 1984 he became an umpire for Stainland second team in the Halifax League for two years, returning to the Huddersfield League in 1986, where he continued to umpire and passed the examinations of the Association 0f Cricket Umpires.

He was the umpires representative on the Hudderstield League Council for nine years in the 1990s and made vice chairman of the umpires in 1995.

He was elected President of the Umpires Association in 2001, retiring in October 2007 when he was made honorary Life Vice President.

In the autumn of 2001, at the age of 79, he attended Huddersfield Technical College to study computer science and, the following year, obtained the City & Guilds of London Institute certificates in IT Principals, Word Processing and Spreadsheets, two of them with distinction.