A LEADING badminton player, who captained Oxfordshire's first team for around 20 years, has died aged 71.

Banbury-born Derek Barrett who also played competitive cricket and football, died on December 11.

From 1958, he made 100 appearances for the county badminton first team.

In 1971 he was made the first honorary president of the Oxfordshire's County Badminton Association when the group split from a joint association with Buckinghamshire.

He also played badminton for the Feathers team in Banbury, and for the Abingdon club, as well as football for Easington Sports in Banbury, cricket for Banbury Twenty, and tennis for Adderbury.

While living in Oxford from 1967 to 1972, he played for Headington Cricket Club.

Barrett was educated at the old Banbury Grammar School before joining Barclays Bank in 1948.

He managed the Cornmarket branch in Oxford, and others at Beaconsfield in Bucks and Gosport, Hampshire, where he lived for the last 29 years.

He was married to Pauline, and the couple had three children, Ian, who died aged 40, Linda and Keith.

A funeral will take place at St Mary's in Gosport on December 23 at 11.30am.