A much-loved cricket club member described as a “wonderful character and terrific player” has died suddenly after a brief illness.

Bryan “Carpo” Carpenter was well known with amateur cricketers from across the region.

He died in his sleep at the home he shared with long-term partner Doreen Wilkinson in Corbyn Road, Russells Hall, Dudley.

The 65-year-old had been given the all-clear following a battle with cancer when he was struck down with flu.

Ms Wilkinson, aged 62, today paid tribute to the former Stourbridge Grammar School pupil, saying he was a “lovely man” who “loved people and loved cricket”. Friends at Netherton Cricket Club, where Mr Carpenter had been a member since 1964, said they were “saddened and stunned” by his death but vowed to give him a “fitting send off”.

Ms Wilkinson said: “We have been together for 20 years, Bryan was my life.

“The cricket club was like a second family to him, they are a wonderful group of people. I don’t know how I would have coped with this without them. He was a real people person, he loved people and loved cricket.”

Mr Carpenter, a retired transport co-ordinator who worked for Redland Brick in Edgbaston, Birmingham, played for Netherton for more than 30 years eventually being forced to down his bat in 1997 due to ill health.

But he was still a regular at the club in Highbridge Road. Ms Wilkinson said Mr Carpenter, who volunteered at Cancer Support at the White House in Ednam Road, relished the dressing room banter.

“They are real wind-up merchants at the cricket club and Bryan loved to get involved,” she said.

Father-of-two Colin Brookes, aged 67, of Monteagle Drive, Kingswinford, said Mr Carpenter was a “very well known and well respected” club cricketer.

A funeral will take place at St Andrew’s Church in Highbridge Road from 11.15am on November 17 before a cremation at Gornal Crematorium. Mourners will then go to the cricket club.