Frederick William 'Fred' Leamon (11 May 1919–29 July 1981) was a professional footballer, who played in The Football League

The Football League

The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

 for Newport County

Newport County A.F.C.

Newport County Association Football Club are a professional football club based in the city of Newport, south Wales, who currently play in the Conference National, the highest level of the National League System and fifth highest of the overall English football league system...

, Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers F.C.

Bristol Rovers Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Bristol, that competes in Football League Two. The team plays its home matches at the Memorial Stadium, in the Horfield area of the city....

 and Brighton & Hove Albion

Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.

Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club are an English association football club based in the coastal city of Brighton & Hove, East Sussex. They currently play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system....

, as well as an international bowls

Bowls

Bowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll slightly asymmetric balls so that they stop close to a smaller "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat or convex or uneven...

 player.

Leamon was a Royal Marines

Royal Marines

The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...

 commando

Commando

In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...

 and also played for non-League

Non-league football

Non-League football is football in England played at a level below that of the Premier League and The Football League. The term non-League was commonly used well before 1992 when the top football clubs in England all belonged to The Football League; all clubs who were not a part of The Football...

 side Bath City

Bath City F.C.

Bath City Football Club are a semi-professional football club based in Bath, Somerset. They play in the Conference National league after gaining promotion from the Conference South via the play-offs in May 2010...

 before taking up football professionally. He joined Newport County in February 1946, and scored a remarkable 23 goals in 16 unofficial wartime matches for them. On the resumption of League football in the summer of 1946 he played just four games for Newport, scoring three times, before moving to Bristol Rovers. He scored 21 goals in 43 League games during a three-year spell with The Pirates, and also scored four times in eleven games for Brighton & Hove Albion during the 1949–50 season. He then spent a year with non-League Chippenham Town

Chippenham Town F.C.

Chippenham Town are an English football club based in Chippenham, Wiltshire, currently playing in the Southern League Premier Division. They are nicknamed the Bluebirds and they play their home matches at Hardenhuish Park. Their home kit consists of a blue shirt, blue shorts and blue socks...

 before finally hanging up his boots in 1951.

As well as playing football, Leamon was an accomplished bowls player, representing Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 over twenty times in international competitions, despite being born in Jersey

Jersey

Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

.

In later life he worked as a security guard

Security guard

A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...

 for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, and it was while working in this capacity that he suffered a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 at St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

 during the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana

Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer

The wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Frances Spencer took place on Wednesday, 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral, London, United Kingdom. Their marriage was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding" and the "wedding of the century". It was watched by an estimated global TV...

. Despite attempts by a policeman to resuscitate him, he died on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

.