Ex-Sports Personality award winner and community leader to be given Freedom of the City of Sheffield
Des Smith has been involved with a huge number of organisations but is probably best known as chairman of Sheffield Caribbean Sports and Social Club.
A leading member of the city Afro-Caribbean community and former BBC Sports Personality Unsung Hero award winner is to be honoured with the Freedom of the City of Sheffield.
Des Smith will receive the city’s highest honour at a special meeting of Sheffield City Council at the Town Hall next Wednesday (March 5), ahead of the budget-setting meeting.
The meeting agenda says that Des, who is a Deputy Lieutenant of Sheffield, is being honoured “in recognition of his services to youth development, mental health awareness, sport and community cohesion, and, in doing so, rendering eminent services to the city.”
Des has been involved with a huge number of organisations but is probably best known as chairman of Sheffield Caribbean Sports and Social Club. The club was founded in Ecclesfield in 1965.
It celebrates Caribbean culture and offers chances to play cricket, football, hockey and netball to all Sheffielders.
When he won the BBC Unsung Hero award in 2023, Des said that sport had helped him integrate when he emigrated to the UK from Jamaica as a 13-year-old in 1966.
He has also served on Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust, South Yorkshire Probation Board, Youth Association South Yorkshire and Sheffield Business-Link.
A former long-serving magistrate and ex-chairman of the Sheffield bench of magistrates, he has mediated on cases referred to the British Boxing Board of Control and the International Cricket Council. Des has also chaired disciplinary hearings of the FA chairman’s Anti-Discrimination Commission.
Des is also involved with Sheffield and Hallamshire County Football Association.
The most recent Freedom of Sheffield recipients are ‘the man with the pram’ – cancer charity fundraiser John Burkhill – and former city MP Richard Caborn.