A leading table tennis coach, who is battling pancreatic cancer, has been honoured by Beckfoot School.

Keighley-based Hans Soova won the Outstanding Contribution to Sport prize at the school’s awards ceremony.

Soova, who is 78 later this month and coaches at Oakbank Table Tennis Club, Nab Wood Sports Centre and Beckfoot School, said of the award: “I am amazed and really honoured. It was a big surprise.”

He usually takes just a fortnight a year off from coaching but a six-hour operation because of his illness caused him to take five weeks off.

“That is the longest rest from coaching I have had in 47 years,” said Soova.

“They wouldn’t have done such a long operation if I hadn’t been so fit and I remain positive.”

Soova came to England as a refugee from Estonia in 1951, having spent the Second World War and its immediate aftermath in displaced people’s camps in Germany, where he learnt to play table tennis.

“I took up coaching by accident – no-one else in Bradford wanted the job – and I got a lot of encouragement from my late wife Christine,” he said.

“I focus my coaching on the four As – attendance, attitude, ambition and attention to detail – and this will help the player and coach go in the same direction.

“In 1970 I started the Bradford Schools’ League and individual championships and have coached hundreds of young people. But you never stop learning and the challenge in each session is to make a difference to the player.

“So far my students have won 53 national championship gold medals, 24 have represented England and 16 have been England No 1s – but their achievements after table tennis are just as important.”