An accomplished journalist. A skilful footballer. A dedicated father. A remarkable man.

Colin Roberts was born in Bromborough, Wirral, on August 15, 1947, the same day that India was partitioned. As someone who loved trivia, this fact was never lost on him. As a proud Merseysider, he loved the city of Liverpool. But in his own words, he wasn’t a Scouser. He was a “Cheshire Cat”.

Dad’s parents — Jack, a postman, and Irene, a hairdresser — lived at 48 Valley Road, Bromborough. It was a modest, two-bedroom end-of-terrace council house. But it was a loving home. It was the house that my dad would grow up in and the house that he would always call home, long after my grandad’s death in 1981 and right through to my nanna’s in 1999.

His early life revolved around spotting steam trains with his dad all around the North-West of England. His father, my grandad, had been a bandsman in the Royal Marines and this influence extended to Dad’s involvement with the Boys’ Brigade. To this day, I still have his bugle. This early exposure to music led to another of his lifelong passions. Music — along with film — occupied my dad almost as much as anything.

The other passions, of course, were football and his family. As a footballer, he showed talent as an inside left in the junior teams at both the Boys’ Brigade and Woodslee Primary School. His love for the game also inspired his devotion to Everton, then a first division outfit while neighbours Liverpool were in the second division. When Dad was rejected at a Liverpool trial when he was just 13 years old, he was so crestfallen that he didn’t show up at his planned Everton trial the next week. The fear of potential rejection was just too much.

His first match at Goodison Park was in 1958, against Portsmouth, the team his dad followed having grown up in and around the Marines in that city. Pompey were 2-0 up at Goodison, but a late rally saw Everton emerge victorious 4-2. From that moment on, it was the Royal Blue rather than the paler Pompey version that further sealed a close and loving bond between my dad and his own father. They were full-blooded Evertonians together.

Dad’s childhood wasn’t always plain sailing. He went to hospital with appendicitis and was also run over outside his house, suffering a broken leg while playing with his childhood friend and neighbour, Bobby Gallacher.

Thankfully, Dad overcame these issues and went on to Wirral Grammar School, where he was a good scholar. He played for the school rugby team, even though it was a sport he didn’t enjoy. He was good enough to play, so they told him he had to, even though that caused some disruption to his weekend football.

School rules prevented association football from being played at Wirral Grammar, but he continued playing at youth level, regardless. Another of his close childhood friends, Kenny Beamish, later became a professional but Dad’s career remained amateur. At Port Sunlight, Dad would regale us with the tale of when he scored a winning goal from the penalty spot in a cup final at Prenton Park, the home of Tranmere Rovers.

The fear was too much for his watching mum, my nanna, and she couldn’t focus her eyes on the spot-kick. His dad, my grandad, had every faith that he would plant it in the bottom corner. He did.

Another of Dad’s footballing team-mates was his best childhood friend, Jimmy Lockwood. Jimmy died tragically in North Wales in a road traffic accident. Fatefully, it was on a night when my dad might have joined him but for a date with my mum, Sheila, his future wife. Jimmy’s death devastated my dad. My own middle name is James, as a result.

During his A levels, Dad’s dedication to school began to waver and he and his masters struck a mutual agreement that it would perhaps be better for him to leave instead of taking the exams. But this was the making of him. Already a talented writer, Dad became a trainee journalist on the Ellesmere Port News & Advertiser, going on day release to journalism college in Preston. He was just 17. On one occasion after a row with the editor, Dad was told to leave and not come back. He went for lunch but then, indeed, did come back and returned to his desk. When asked what he was doing, he said: “I thought I would stay after all.” The editor laughed. It’s a reminder to me that my dad had plenty of charm. He was also a man with incredible humour and resilience. He always gave me the most invaluable advice, especially during tough times.

Soon after starting his journalism career, Dad met my mum, Sheila. She was on a family holiday from Enfield to Cornwall during the summer of 1965. They travelled between Liverpool and London when they were “courting”, eventually marrying on April 5, 1969, at St Barnabas Church in Bromborough. Mum had moved to Merseyside by then and even got a job in advertising on the Liverpool Echo, where my dad would later join her after having moved to the Birkenhead News. He became the Echo’s crime reporter.

In late 1970, they moved to London Colney near St Albans, Hertfordshire. I was born there in September 1971 and my sister in October 1974. Dad shifted on national newspapers and worked at Broadstrood Press before the opportunity came to become Sports Editor of The Royal Gazette in Bermuda. Our family moved and spent five years there — before Mum, Caroline and I returned to England in September 1982. Dad spent another year on the island before rejoining us and I’ll never forget the day he (unexpectedly) collected me from primary school after perhaps a year of not having seen him. I raced to him as quickly as I could and jumped into his arms, without a single thought for how this might be perceived by my peers. I loved him. I missed him.

We lived in Chelmsford, Essex — first at Moulsham Lodge and then Galleywood. Dad was working at various publishing houses in London, including William Reed and Citigate, as well as a period as deputy editor of Construction News in Swiss Cottage.

He was always a wordsmith. He knew a story. He knew how to write it. And he had a flair for newspaper design, too. In fact, he was even a talented photographer and would often develop his own prints in a makeshift darkroom at home.

Eventually, Dad took these skills to HSBC at Canary Wharf, where he became internal communications manager until his retirement in 2007. By this time, he had long since broken up from my mum (1988) and his second wife Lisa, and had met Duan, on a visit to Thailand. Since 1990, he had lived in Finchley but Dad and Duan took a flat in Silvertown, East London, before he emigrated for the second time in his life — this time to Nong Prue near Pattaya.

Always a keen sportsman, Dad played a lot of golf with friends and I visited him in 2013 to play with him. Never shy to display his vast knowledge, Dad was also a central figure on the local pub quiz circuit, which provided him with many good friends and a close-knit support community of expatriates. I’m so grateful he had this.

Dad was a devoted father; not just to me and my sister, Caroline, but also to his stepdaughter, Dear. He loved his grandchildren, too. Thom and Liv, George and Liam. I’m eternally grateful that I was able to take George and Liam to spend three weeks with him in April 2018.

Dad’s health deteriorated some time after that. But, mercifully, apart from perhaps his last year, his time in Thailand was happy and healthy. There’s no question that my dad left his mark on people. I knew how remarkable he was. He was my father, after all. But I didn’t perhaps quite understand just how popular he was, how much he helped other people and how much of an impact he had on many other people’s lives.

I should have guessed this, when I think now about his impact on my own life. He inspired my passion for music. He inspired my love for Everton. He took me to countless matches, whether Everton were at the top — as they were in the 1980s — or at the bottom. It didn’t matter to us. It was the bond that tied us together.

He spent hours and hours on me when I was a kid. Playing football or cricket in the park. Playing darts. Playing snooker. Travelling to Everton matches. You name it. He did for me what his dad had done for him.

His influence was so strong that there was never any doubt in my own mind that I wanted to be a journalist, too. I wanted to follow him. It’s no coincidence that I worked on the Liverpool Echo and eventually became crime reporter myself. I even worked on The Royal Gazette before my career went in a different direction.

Colin Roberts was the most incredible man. He shaped me in so many ways. But not just me. It’s clear to me now that he shaped many other people, too. He was my dad and I loved him. And just as I recall that moment when I leapt into his arms outside my primary school, I really miss him. I always will.

• Colin Roberts, former Royal Gazette Sports Editor and Assistant Editor, was born on August 15, 1947 and died of bladder cancer on August 27, 2022, aged 75