Staff and students have paid their own fundraising tribute in memory of a teacher who helped a Bradford school to raise more than a quarter of million pounds for good causes.

Mike Lambert died of lung cancer at the age of 53 earlier this year after working for more than 30 years as a teacher at Hanson School, in Swain House.

When he first joined the school in 1973 he launched a Know About Your Environment day, a sponsored walk to raise cash for charity.

And since then the event has been run every two years, raising more than £250,000 for both the school and good causes.

And despite battling against cancer, he took part in last year's walk in October around Baildon, Shipley and Saltaire.

That event raised £21,000 which has been donated to Cancer Research and helped to pay for a new school minibus which arrived this week.

The school's head of sixth form, Derek Needham, said staff and students had wanted to raise money for a cancer charity after finding out Mr Lambert had been diagnosed with the disease in April last year.

And the fundraising continued in his memory last week with a football match between the school's current team and former pupils.

Former students came back to the city from across the country to take part in the game which included Bradford City star Lewis Emanuel and former Bantams striker Danny Cadamarteri.

On the day the students raised £500 which will be donated to Marie Curie Cancer and a Mike Lambert memorial fund which will raise cash to pay for a garden and bench at Hanson School in his memory.

Former pupil Gareth Hurst, 24, of Eccleshill, who left the school in 1998, helped to organise the game and said the match would now become an annual fundraising event in Mr Lambert's honour. He said: "Mike Lambert was a very popular teacher at the school and when we heard about his death we decided we wanted to do something. All of the players were former pupils but some had come from as far away as Newcastle to take part." The match finished as a 6-6 draw but the old boys won on penalties.

As well as teaching geography Mr Lambert was also involved in several clubs including football. He was married with two children.

Mr Needham was one of Mr Lambert's best friends, having worked alongside him at Hanson School for the past 30 years.

He said: "Mike was a wonderful man, he was happy, bright, enthusiastic, wonderfully humorous and totally loyal.

"He was enormously popular with the students. He was the head of year for our current year 13 students and they were devastated when they found out about his death."