King's Birthday Honours: MBE for former Sheffield PE teacher Malcolm Rogers who taught Jess Ennis and Joe Root

Malcolm, who came to the city in the 1960s, taught at Jordanthorpe School and King Ecgberts Schools, where he was a PE teacher who worked with pupils including Jess Ennis and Joe Root at his school. He also worked with Sebastian Coe and Peter Elliott in a wider role in athletics within Sheffield schools.

But he has also been involved in athletics events as a part time volunteer for many years, including working as the competition director for athletics at the London Olympics in 2012.

Malcolm, from Norton, said that his favourite memory in all that time was Jess Ennis winning her Olympic gold in 2012, when he admits he delegated duties to a colleague for a few minutes so he could go and congratulate his former pupil, and admits he wept with joy as he did so.

He said of his honour, awarded in King Charles’s birthday honours: “I was surprised and very humbled. It may have been me that’s been honoured, but the people who really deserve this are the heroes of athletics – those people who go out and run things at club level on wet Wednesday nights for local league meetings. There are great people out there who dedicate themselves to sport.”

He retired from his job as a teacher in 2011, but has continued his volunteer work in athletics.

Malcolm, aged 78, who has lived in Sheffield since 1963, is not the first person in his family to receive an MBE. His wife, Sue, already has one, having been awarded it for services to trade unions several years ago for her work with organisations including the teaching union NASUWT and the Trades Union Congress.

Officials say Malcolm has been one of the best athletics officials in Britain and the world for more than 50 years and has made a significant contribution to British Athletics in organising the biggest athletics events in the world and has made a lifetime of commitment to the sport.

He has not missed a major athletics event in the UK since 2002, a period covering 11 different events across the athletics competition calendar including World and European Championships and Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games, in the role of either Competition Director or Competition Administration Manager.

He has been a pioneer in modernising how athletics events are delivered, leading the way in integrating the roles of event presentation, technical officials and live television. In addition to his technical expertise, he has also been a pioneer for equality, diversity and inclusion in the sport.

Having officiated at world para athletics events in the 1980s and 1990s, he was involved at the outset of introducing para athletics into mainstream events.

Before then in the late 1970s and early 1980s he judged and refereed at the highest level domestically and internationally. He served as the national officials secretary for almost 20 years, was an area technical official for Europe from 1996 to 2018 and a member of UK Athletics’ technical advisory group since its inception in 2004.