Football coach and diabetes charity worker made an MBE

Tony Carr, the youth coach of West Ham FC and diabetes awareness campaigner, has been recognised in the Queen’s birthday honour’s list by being made an MBE. In his time at West Ham, Carr has helped to coach the talents of Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, John Terry, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe and Glen Johnso, making him one of the most influential figures in the game.
After having his own football career ended by injury, he has given 36 years of service to the club, and was recently honoured with a testimonial year in 2009/10, which culminated in a match in May this year that featured a number of his old trainees, including Ferdinand and Lampard.
Carr, 59, has also worked tirelessly for charity, especially to help kids suffering from diabetes . Carr himself was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2007, and is determined to prove that the condition is not a barrier to a healthy and active life.
Carr, now an Academy Director at West Ham, and a friend of www.diabetes.co.uk through his involvement in a couple of our successful youth days, began his career as an apprentice cleaning the boots for club legends Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst, before starting to coach youngsters in 1973, after injury forced him retire.
Carr said “Growing up on a council estate in Bow to someone who ends up with an MBE. I would never have dreamed something like this would happen to me. It just completes a special year, with my testimonial and now this. It doesn’t get any better.”