Sussex football and cricket legend Don Bates has died aged 72 from an asbestos-related cancer.

Former team-mates of the Brighton and Hove Albion right-half and Sussex opening batsmen have paid tribute to a remarkable sportsman and good friend.

Mr Bates is the fourth star of a golden era for Sussex cricket to pass away in the last five months following the deaths of Richard Langridge, Ken Suttle and Lord (David) Sheppard, former bishop of Liverpool.

With 21 years on the Sussex staff, Mr Bates was perhaps better known as a fast bowler than a footballer, taking 880 first-class wickets and winning his county cap in August 1957.

He is one of only a handful of Sussex cricketers to take more than 100 wickets in three seasons.

Mr Bates, who lived in Havelock Road, Brighton, had a 12-year career at the Goldstone, most of which was spent in the reserves.

Most of his 21 first-team appearances came in the promotion season of 1958.

Contemporaries paid tribute to an easy-going, universally-popular man and a gifted sportsman.

Opening Sussex batsman Alan Oakman, who now lives in Birmingham, said: "He was an accurate bowler and he could do things with the ball on a difficult wicket that nobody else could. He will be remembered as one of the best.

"I will always remember how he always had his shoe laces undone and was forever being reminded to tie them up when he walked back to bowl.

"He combined cricket and football to a high standard and that could not be done nowadays."

Mr Bates attended Hove Grammar School. He played football for Brighton Boys and Sussex Schools and made his first-class debut for Sussex as a teenage fast-bowler in 1950.

The following November, after a brief spell with Lewes, he signed as a forward for the Albion and served for five seasons in the Metropolitan league and Football Combination sides upon his demob from the National Service in November 1953.

After a brief spell of first-team glory in 1953, Mr Bates returned to the reserves until 1962 when he left for a cricket coaching post in South Africa at the age of 29. He taught abroad every winter for eight years.

In 1968 he received a benefit from Sussex and a testimonial football match was played involving his former colleagues from the promotion side.

He subsequently had a spell as player-manager with Steyning Town in the Sussex County League and taught PE at special schools.