An award-winning footballer, coaching legend and former president of Pembroke Hamilton Club was a mentor and champion for the island’s youth.

Leroy “Nibs” Lewis, who began playing football as a youngster on Princess Street in Hamilton, where he grew up, was part of a PHC team that emerged as a dominant force in Bermuda football in the 1960s.

The club called him “undoubtedly a legendary figure” in its history.

“He was known for his exceptional skills and blazing speed on the field, playing either as an inside right or forward.

“Despite his small stature, he possessed remarkable ability and a sharp footballing mind, capable of outmanoeuvring opponents with his dribbling prowess and game intelligence.”

Mr Lewis started playing with PHC at age 14, and transitioned to coaching at the Warwick club throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

As a coach, he was known for keeping a close eye on younger players in particular.

The highlight, alongside numerous domestic titles, was the brilliant run in 1986 to the Concacaf Champions Cup semi-finals, where PHC won every home match before losing on aggregate to ultimate champions Alajuelense, of Costa Rica.

The journey had taken in stops in San Francisco (Greek-American Athletic Club, 2-0 win on aggregate), Belize (Real Verde FC 4-2) and Honduras (Motagua FC 5-3) before moving on to Costa Rica, where a 4-0 first-leg deficit on a thickly grassed playing surface proved too much to overcome.

But Mr Lewis roused his troops for the return leg, and that 1-0 win at the former PHC Stadium on the night of September 27, 1986 not only maintained a 100 per cent home record but felt as though they had won it all.

No Bermudian club team have enjoyed as much success before or since in the regional championships.

Mr Lewis rose through the club’s ranks as senior team captain and then secretary before becoming president, stepping down from that role in 1995 after 12 years’ service.

He was inducted into the PHC Hall of Fame in 2013.

Mr Lewis was also part of a circle of leading Bermuda sports figures who grew concerned during the 1990s about rising antisocial behaviour.

The group campaigned for a government programme to help at-risk young people.

Their collective work resulted in the creation of the Mirrors Programme, launched in 2007 under the administration of Ewart Brown, the former premier.

PHC shot to prominence for three seasons when the team won the old Bermuda Football League title along with the FA Cup in the seasons ending in 1960, 1961 and 1962.

In 1962, they also won the BFL Knockout Trophy, giving them a treble.

When PHC won the FA Cup in April 1967, Mr Lewis as captain scored a late winner in the final.

At the conclusion of that season, Mr Lewis also won the Most Valuable Player award, the first such award for the club.

Mr Lewis was vocal as a coach, but notoriously taciturn in public.

The Royal Gazette reported in 1970 that “an unusually shy” Mr Lewis accepted the MVP award from Lord Martonmere, the Governor, but “declined to make a speech and instead received a pat on the back from the Governor”.

That resistance towards public speaking carried on through his coaching career, as Mr Lewis ensured journalists earned the right to be granted an interview by first watching his squad at work during training sessions.

In the summer of 1967, Mr Lewis was among the squad of 18 under coach Graham Adams that won a silver medal for Bermuda at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada. All 18 players were eventually inducted into the Bermuda Sports Hall of Fame.

Mr Lewis captained PHC to the Triple Crown in 1971, with the win putting a decisive end to a Somerset Trojans dynasty that had lasted four years.

He stepped down as coach of PHC’s senior team at the close of the 1989-90 season to devote his time to the club’s junior teams.

Mr Lewis’s commitment to young people showed in a 2017 interview with the Gazette when he described his work with the island’s youth — along with adopting a child with his wife, Anternette, a social worker.

“The behaviour you see today at football games is terrible,” he said.

“When we were kids, our parents didn’t have telephones — but if we misbehaved in school, they knew about it before we got home.”

PHC said Mr Lewis mentored many players who went on to become coaches, and he guided young footballers into higher education through football scholarships.

Former PHC Zebras player and coach Kenneth “Jack” Castle recalled Mr Lewis elevating him from the younger Bantam football team up to the seniors in the mid-1970s.

Mr Castle said his era came with a “changing of the guard”, with the island’s coaches collaborating even as their clubs competed for the glory.

“Nibs was really special, not only for myself but everybody within the club.

“He would help if you were having problems in school or needed a job — on the field, off the field, his vision was not only for great football players, but to have gentlemen prepared for life.”

Mr Castle said the team were relegated from the First Division in the late 1970s but came back “blazing” in the 1980s.

He added: “That was when we had this explosion of the Zebras coming back to the First Division. That was when we won trophies, went to Concacaf and made a name for ourselves.

“Nibs was like a father figure to every last one of us. He was not only a mentor to us at PHC, but to football in Bermuda.”

Fellow PHC footballer Sammy “Snake” Swan, who had more than his fair share of run-ins with the coach, echoed that sentiment.

“He was a very disciplined guy who set you straight when you didn’t have the right attitude,” the former winger said.

“He definitely took an interest in young people. It wasn’t just football — he wanted to make sure you were doing right at home. He worked with parents, who would tell him how you were doing in school. If you weren’t doing too sharp, he’d work with them.

“At one stage, if you didn’t have a job, he would get you one, and you would have to keep it. If you weren’t doing your homework or your schoolwork, you couldn’t play football.”

Mr Lewis passed away in Rumford, East London, where he lived with his wife Anternette, and sons Jason (adopted), and Leroy Jr, who recently made his senior international debut for Bermuda, spent several recent years training at the West Ham United academy.

“It was very sad to hear,” Mr Swan said. “I was looking forward to seeing him.”

PHC footballer Ed “Beaver” Burrows, a goalkeeper from the 1970s, recalled Mr Lewis’s occasionally showy style as a young player, but said that as a coach, “he was a mentor, coach and father who knew the game”.

Mr Burrows said he had trouble as a short-statured goalkeeper confronting taller oncoming players, but Mr Lewis already had plans in place.

“He had players in certain spots in the field around the goal, and all he wanted my players to do was attack the ball and take the pressure off.”

Mr Burrows added that “Nibs” closely observed other teams and intuited their strong and weak points to strategise.

“He would tell our plays to let them try to shoot on their wrong foot, block out the better foot. He talked to you, guided you. My team gave him the respect; everyone did.

“He used to help young players get into school in the States, get them on scholarships — and not just PHC.”

Mr Lewis took coaching so seriously that Mr Burrows remembered a Christmas when the team were preparing for a cup game and were required to train that morning before celebrating with family.

Players would train on Horseshoe Bay Beach, including running up the dune face nicknamed “Kilimanjaro” to get fit — and any player who showed up at the field after missing training would be ordered to exercise on the sidelines while the match went under way.

“He stood for nothing,” Mr Burrows added. “One of my closest friends, someone called up Nibs and told him he’d seen him hanging out past midnight. Nibs took him off the team!

“He was one of the first coaches I’ve seen putting a player on the field and then substituting him ten minutes into the game. If you weren’t doing what he told you, he would bring you back off the field.”

Chris Furbert, president of the Bermuda Industrial Union, was coached by Mr Lewis and presided over PHC after “Nibs” retired, having served alongside him for a decade as vice-president.

Mr Furbert said: “Leroy was very passionate about the game, knew the game extremely well. As far as being a mentor, a father figure, I’d say definitely Leroy was all of that.

“He was very, very interested in making sure people got a proper education, got through their schoolwork. He was a quiet person, but once you got to know him, he was very nice to be around.”

Longstanding coach Jon Beard, former head of physical education at Saltus Grammar School and later deputy headteacher, said: “Nibs was a terrific guy — a totally straight shooter with a real passion for football and Bermuda football in particular.”

Mr Beard added: “He had no time for nonsense. In my first year of coaching in Bermuda, he was in charge of a PHC team that had been relegated. He drafted in a lot of young players who would run through a brick wall for him.

“They easily won the division and were returned to the top flight the next season. His command of the team and the utmost respect they gave him was an example to us all.

“He always had time to chat with coaches, and you could be sure he would have a strong opinion over any football issue.”

Mr Beard said: “He was one of life’s great characters and will be missed by us all.”

• Leroy George Harley “Nibs” Lewis, footballer, coach and PHC president, was born on August 24, 1941. He died on October 10, 2024, aged 83