MUSCULAR, sporty and smiling. This is Stuart Hudson in a lifetime of photos, always brimming with vitality, enjoying sports.

Football, cricket, squash, he did them all until during a football match, the 31-year-old, from Dickens Heath, suddenly collapsed and died on the pitch to the horror of his team mates.

It was only weeks later after a post mortem that Stuart’s baffled parents Lynette and Michael Hudson and sister Jackie Osborne discovered he had unwittingly carried a gene all his life that led to him dying from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The condition is the leading cause of sudden heart death in young athletes that sadly is normally symptom-less, meaning victims have no idea their heart muscle has been thickening to a fatal level until it is too late.

“He was like Tarzan,” remembers dad Michael, aged 67, picking up a photo of his son at his Solihull home.

“Stuart was so fit and strong. He played squash twice a week, used to play cricket and was a fast sprinter, no-one ever beat him in the 100m.

“Football was what he really enjoyed. We used to love watching him play. We got so much joy out of it.”

Mum Lynette, aged 65, said: “There was absolutely no indication of this heart condition at all, that’s the real tragedy in it all.

“There are no symptoms and no warning signs. Anyone can be carrying around this gene and not be aware of it.”