A TEENAGER died after suffering a stroke while playing football.

David Graham, 16, of The Old Co-Op in Waterside, Darwen, died in Royal Preston Hospital after he collapsed during a game against a team from neighbouring village Hoddlesden.

The Darwen Moorland High School pupil was taken by ambulance to Blackburn Royal Infirmary after pal Ian Almond, 18, raised the alarm and dialled 999.

Ian travelled with David to hospital while his parents were contacted by phone.

His dad, also David, said: "I received a telephone call at work at about 2pm and rushed straight out to pick my wife Jackie up from work on the way to the hospital. It was completely out of the blue and has left relatives and the whole village distraught."

Medical experts were today awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination carried out yesterday to discover the exact cause of death but Mr Graham said he had fallen and banged his head during a football match at school the week before.

The couple decided to offer their son's organs for transplant before they were asked so that other people would benefit from his death.

Mr Graham, 42, said David had banged his head but the family believed the cause could be hereditary.

He described David, a Blackburn Rovers fan, as a typical 16-year-old who liked hip-hop music and his computer but who preferred to be outdoors in the fresh air playing football with his mates or riding his mountain bike.

Mr Graham said: "David was always happy and always smiling -- he was one just one of those people.

"Everybody in the village knew him and have been hit very hard as well. People we don't know have come knocking on our door, that's just what David was like."

"He was definitely happiest outside and most days we never saw him until he came in for his tea."

Mr Graham, a branch manager at K Steels in Darwen, had dropped David off to play a 'friendly' match at the park in Eccleshill Gardens before he went to work on Wednesday.

The match was between the boys of Waterside and those of Hoddlesden and David had been talking about it for weeks.

Mr Graham said that at first it was thought David, who had watched the Worthington Cup Final in Cardiff and planned to buy a Rovers season ticket with his friends, had fitted because he had complained of a massive headache.

The scan was unable to show anything however.

He was given another scan on Thursday morning and the results showed that David had suffered a stroke.

His condition deteriorated further on Thursday afternoon and Mr Graham and his wife, Jackie, a 39-year-old civil servant at Blackburn's Job Centre Plus, were told that his situation was serious.

He died of a massive heart attack at 10.30am on Good Friday.

Mr Graham said: "We decided before the doctors asked that we would donate all of his organs. The doctors said that because he was young and fit he would help at least half a dozen people. To know this has been a great help."

Mr Graham said that David's grandfather, Bill, aged 73, had previously suffered three strokes and his elder sister had undergone open-heart surgery when she was born. He said that although Claire, now 18, and David had both been fine until now, the doctors now think that he may have had a small hole in his heart like his sister.

David was due to take his GCSEs at Darwen Moorland High School this year and wanted to be a chef.

The funeral is planned for Monday April 8 at Pleasington Crematorium at noon.

Friends and neighbours have already raised over £600 at an Easter Egg competition at the Duke of York pub in Waterside. Bernadette Woods, the landlady, said the money will go towards a memorial bench in Waterside and a new brain scanner at Royal Preston Hospital.

Anyone interested in making a donation should contact the hospital on 01772 710194.