Football legend collects hometown honour

Premiership football star and BBC sports personality for 2009, Ryan Giggs, has been honoured with the freedom of his adopted home city of Salford.
The Wales international and Manchester United winger, from Worsley, joins Nelson Mandela, LS Lowry and David Lloyd George as a previous recipient of the city’s highest honour.
The award was presented to Ryan by the Mayor of Salford, Cllr Roger Lightup, at a civic ceremony at The Lowry, Salford Quays.
Ryan said: "To be given the freedom of Salford, my adopted city, has to rank amongst the greatest honours I have ever received.
"I feel hugely proud and privileged to be recognised in this way and would like to place on record my gratitude to the city fathers for bestowing on me this wonderful tribute.
"I am a proud Welshman and native of Cardiff, but I have for many years looked on Salford as home and to be given this honour means the world to me.
"I’m not sure what the benefits a freeman of the city are, but I do know that it is an accolade I shall always cherish!"
Nominating him, Salford City Council’s lead member of children’s services, Cllr John Warmisham, said: "It’s with great pleasure that I move Ryan Giggs to be awarded the honour of the freedom of the city of Salford.
"Many people only know Ryan Giggs the footballer, but there is so much more to the man than that.
"Ryan adopted Salford as his home city and has become a great ambassador for the city. He also goes quietly about doing charitable work in the city with youth clubs and hospitals and in 2006 he became a UK ambassador for UNICEF.
"He is an ideal role model for young people, a unique sportsman and someone with an awareness of his own good fortune and a desire to use it to help others."
The nomination was seconded by Cllr Derek Antrobus.
He said: "Ryan was brought up in Salford and he has been part of the local community in Swinton all of his life.
"He attended local schools and played for the local youth team, Deans FC and captained Salford Schoolboys.
"It is the contribution to the local community that makes Ryan Giggs a suitable candidate for the honour of freedom of the city.
"He is an inspiration to local people and his national and international achievements have lifted the aspirations of young people in Salford. He is a role model not simply in terms of being a high achiever but also in behaviour."
Mayor of Salford Cllr Roger Lightup added: "Ryan is not only a world class footballer but a Salford resident and I’m delighted we’re able to honour someone of his stature who is proud of their home town.
"Freedom of the city recognises people who have made an exceptional contribution to our community and Ryan has devoted a tremendous amount of his time to work with charities and children over a number of years."
Today's freemen gain no real privileges but they do receive a scroll to mark their status and the pride the city has in them.
The medieval term 'freeman' meant someone who was not the property of a feudal lord, but enjoyed privileges such as the right to earn money and own land.
Town dwellers who were protected by the charter of their town or city were often free - hence the term 'freedom of the city'.
A number of ancient privileges are usually associated with the Freedom - although they are more a product of collective memory than of documented evidence.
For example, freemen of the city of London have a right to herd sheep over London Bridge, to go about the city with a drawn sword, and if convicted of a capital offence, to be hung with a silken rope.
Other advantages are said to have included the right to avoid being press-ganged, to be married in St Paul's Cathedral, buried in the city or to be drunk and disorderly without fear of arrest.