Chris Kamara has been made an MBE for his services to football, anti-racism campaigning and charity in the New Year Honours list.
The former player and manager is a fan-favourite for his role as a broadcaster, capturing the imagination on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday for years. Kamara played over 600 games for nine clubs during a 21-year professional playing career that begun in 1974.
He also managed Bradford and Stoke in the 1990s before becoming a regular feature for football fans up and down the country. His famous match updates have written themselves into modern day football folklore and furthered his reputation within the game.
Kamara - known for his "unbelievable Jeff" catchphrase to co-presenter Jeff Stelling - has also spoken out against some of the biggest issues in football. He was subjected to racism throughout his career, detailing stories of how he was booed by his own supporters and refused service in pubs due to his skin colour.
He spoke out passionately about racism during the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement and said: "This has been going on since the year dot. We need to get it out of football, we need to get it out of society. The only way we can do it is by education and for people to think, 'Why are those professional footballers doing that?'. The reason they're doing that is to stop this.
"It's captured every single race, who know about this now and know that it needs to be stopped. We are doing something massive now to stop it. We will never eradicate it, but this is going to go a long way towards making sure we don't see it on a regular basis."
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Kamara spends a lot of time participating in charity work. In 2010, he became a national ambassador for Marie Curie, an organisation which provides care and support to people living with terminal illness. Earlier this year, he won £32,000 for the charity during an appearance on popular quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
The former player-turned-pundit's recent efforts also come amid the diagnosis of speech apraxia. Kamara has confessed to suffering in silence before eventually being diagnosed, and urged anyone suffering to get themselves checked out.
He told ITV : "Initially, I was in denial. I'm a dinosaur. I suffered in silence for about 20 months and in that time, my thyroid gland became virtually non-existent, so that could be the reason for all my problems along the line, by just not going to see a doctor. Now, not only have I got an under-active thyroid, the apraxia of speech has come on, my balance is no good, I'm really weak."
