A BLACKBURN funeral director has donated a new casket for the ashes of a football legend.

Talbot Funeral Services has provided an inscribed wooden casket for the final resting place of Tommy Lawton, which has now been presented to the National Football Museum.

The Preston-based museum was presented with the ashes of the former Burnley, Everton, Chelsea, Notts County, Arsenal and England centre forward earlier this month.

The museum said Lawton, who made 390 league appearances between 1936 and 1956 and scored 231 goals, was one of the most prolific natural goalscorers the game had ever seen.

And it was his son Tommy Jnr, the most recent custodian of the ashes, who made the plea for them to be displayed at the museum.

Because of the uncertainty over the final destination of the ashes they were presented to the museum in the original vessel that they were placed in at the crematorium.

Mark Bushell, from the museum said: "When I contacted his son to inform him that his father had been voted into The National Football Museum Hall of Fame I was taken aback when he asked me if his father's ashes could be placed in the museum.

"It would appear that he had originally wanted them to be scattered at Goodison Park, home of Everton, but he is aware that there is some uncertainty about Goodison's future and was fearful that one day it could possibly become - in his words - a supermarket.

"The ashes now have a proper casket thanks to Talbot Funeral Services."