Despite being over twice as old as the man who won gold, Shipley’s Neil Howard, still came away with a bronze medal in one of the British Karate Federation’s (BKF) Four Nations Championship’s disabled categories in Glasgow.

Disability Martial Arts (DMA) is still in its infancy in terms of years and how it adapts its scoring system, and 52-year-old Howard revealed: “Entries were half what they were in 2012 but the BKF work very hard in encouraging disability martial arts and they run several competitions during the year.

“There are two disabled categories – one for wheelchair users and one for non-wheelchair competitors – but some of the entrants didn’t really stand a chance of getting on to the podium because of the rules.

“It won’t be easy to do but it needs something like a golf handicap system to ensure that everybody has an equal chance.”

Windhill-based Howard, who is a member of Bradford Kofukan Karate Club, which is based at Eccleshill’s Mechanics’ Institute, has been practicing karate since 1972.

He said: “I was captivated, like a lot of people my age, by the Bruce Lee craze that swept the country back them.

“Now I still maintain the same enthusiasm as I did as a child, although the emphasis has changed drastically.”

Howard, who is an accounts-payroll administrator for the Leeds Mencap charity, was diagnosed as an insulin-dependant diabetic in 1970 at the age of nine and, as a result of the long-term effects of diabetes, is now registered partially sighted and has a below-knee amputation, but has had a massive lifestyle improvement thanks to a kidney transplant in 2005.