BRITAIN'S highest award for bravery will be worn with pride at a ceremony to honour a hero of the First World War.

The Victoria Cross won by Donald Bell, the only English professional footballer to receive the accolade, will be worn by his great-niece at the unveiling of a new memorial.

Joanna Umpleby, of Romanby, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire, will take part in Sunday's ceremony, at Contalmaison, on The Somme.

The memorial replaces a wooden cross erected at the spot where Second Lieutenant Bell died, which became known as Bell's Redoubt, in his honour.

The original cross has been removed but the Friends of the Green Howards Regimental Museum have been given permission to put up a metal replica mounted on a stone plinth as a permanent memorial.

Second Lt Bell, who was born in Harrogate, played football for Bradford at the outbreak of war and became the first professional footballer to enlist.

He was commissioned in the Green Howards in 1915 and won the VC for his heroic actions at Horseshoe Trench, where he rushed across No Man's Land and put an enemy machine gun out of action.

Five days later, on July 10, 1916, he led a party of bombers to successfully drive off a German counter-attack, but was shot and killed during the action.

The memorial will be unveiled by the Colonel of the Regiment, Major General Richard Dannatt, during Sunday's ceremony