Con­sid­ered prob­a­bly the great­est foot­baller ever to have graced a foot­ball field in the red, white and black of T&T, mid­field­er Leroy De Leon played his last match on earth Tuesday, send­ing the en­tire lo­cal foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty in mourn­ing.

He would have turned 77 years old on Feb­ru­ary 7.

Up­on his pass­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley im­me­di­ate­ly took to his Face­book page to is­sue a com­ment, say­ing, “One of the best who ever graced a foot­ball field wear­ing the na­tion­al colours. He ex­celled at the beau­ti­ful game and left us with some en­dur­ing mem­o­ries. We hope that Ma­haica and Pt Fortin will trea­sure his lega­cy and con­tin­ue to pro­duce more sons like Leroy. To­day the na­tion mourns with you. May he rest in peace.”

It was one of many ador­ing mes­sages to have been blurt­ed out, fol­low­ing an era that lift­ed the sport at home and abroad.

For­mer na­tion­al coach and team­mate Ever­lad “Gal­ly’ Cum­mings said, “He was ex­cep­tion­al, he had a way he did things and it was com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent to oth­er peo­ple and you know some­times peo­ple might see you do some­thing and they can’t do it or have a prob­lem. This wasn’t him, he did some amaz­ing things on the foot­ball field, he was such a nice play­er, I mean he was such a nice play­er and skil­ful play­er. Some­times, when you see him play, you couldn’t be­lieve it.”

The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, in a re­lease, said, “De Leon was not on­ly a foot­baller of ex­tra­or­di­nary skill and vi­sion but al­so an am­bas­sador for the sport, in­spir­ing gen­er­a­tions of play­ers with his tal­ent, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and love for the game. As one of the most gift­ed play­ers of his era, he brought pride to our na­tion, rep­re­sent­ing T&T with grace and ex­cel­lence on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

“Be­yond his con­tri­bu­tions on the field, Leroy De Leon will be re­mem­bered for his role in el­e­vat­ing the pro­file of foot­ball in T&T and the Caribbean. He was a trail­blaz­er whose pas­sion ig­nit­ed dreams in young ath­letes and left an in­deli­ble mark on the sport’s de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion,” the re­lease stat­ed fur­ther.

De Leon grad­u­at­ed from St Bene­dict’s Col­lege where he was part of a fa­mous team that in­clud­ed play­ers such as War­ren Archibald, Steve David, Wil­fred Cave and Jan Stead­man in the Col­leges League, now the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League, that won tro­phies in abun­dance in­clud­ing ti­tles for the Na­tion­al CFL cham­pi­onship/Na­tion­al In­ter­col dou­ble in 1967, along with five, con­sec­u­tive South Zone In­ter­col ti­tles from 1964 to 1968.

Ex­pect­ed­ly, he was named the great­est SS­FL play­er from the first 50 years in 2016. De Leon was lat­er in­duct­ed in­to the T&T’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and was al­so named to the North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League’s First Team in 1970.

In 1967, De Leon signed with the New York Gen­er­als of the Na­tion­al Pro­fes­sion­al Soc­cer League. In 1968, the NPSL merged with the Unit­ed Soc­cer As­so­ci­a­tion to form the North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League (NASL). In 1969, De Leon moved to the Wash­ing­ton Darts, then to the Amer­i­can Soc­cer League. He was a 1970 First Team All-Star in the NASL.

Fol­low­ing the 1971 sea­son, the Darts moved to Mi­a­mi, Flori­da, and be­came the Mi­a­mi Gatos. De Leon did not play in the NASL in 1972. In May 1974, Mi­a­mi (now re­named the Toros) trad­ed De Leon to the Wash­ing­ton Diplo­mats for cash and the Diplo­mats 1974 first round draft choice. In April 1977, the Diplo­mats trad­ed De Leon to the San Jose Earth­quakes in ex­change for Mark Liv­er­ic.

He fin­ished his NASL ca­reer in 1979 with the Seat­tle Sounders. In the fall of 1979, De Leon moved to the De­troit Light­ning of the Ma­jor In­door Soc­cer League. The Light­ning trad­ed him to the Phoenix In­fer­no where he re­tired af­ter three sea­sons.

He al­so played at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

De Leon, who made his na­tion­al team de­but at the age of 16, is re­port­ed to have 17 of­fi­cial caps for T&T at se­nior lev­el.