FOOTBALL legend Alan Shearer has been honoured for his sporting and charitable achievements. 

The ex-Newcastle United and England skipper received the North East Personality of the Year Trophy, at an awards evening hosted by the North East Football Writer's Association in Durham. 

The trophy was awarded in association with the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, in recognition of a man who has used his position in football to benefit the wider community. 

The Premier League's all-time leading goalscorer, who lives in Ponteland, launched his own charity, the Alan Shearer Foundation, in 2012. 

It supports the Alan Shearer centre in Newcastle, which provides specialist respite residential and social care for people with complex disabilities.

Alan, who is also a patron of the Sir Bobby Robson foundation, said: "It was an honour to play football for a living. Now to be able to give something back with the charities I’m involved with is an even bigger honour."

In 2017, Alan was involved with a documentary project, Dementia, Football, and Me, which explored the potentially devastating link between heading the ball and dementia.

The ex-striker, who won the Premier League title with Blackburn Rovers in 1995, added: "To be part of the dementia documentary recently was huge for our sport and at last the research has eventually started.

"It could be pivotal for the families that have campaigned for so long to help get the answers they deserve. So, to receive this award in association with the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation gives me immense pleasure."

Alan received the award just a week after he visited Hexham to present awards to two people who saved a man's life. 

Active Northumberland employee John Fox, and off-duty nurse Elaine Pegg, successfully resuscitated the man, who collapsed shortly after taking part in a walking football session at Hexham's Wentworth Leisure Centre, in February 2018.