A former Somerset Trojans star goalkeeper and a “role model” Chief Officer in the prison service has died.Reginald Gomes played a major part in the department’s community work in which inmates worked on schools, repaired club buildings, and tidied parks and beaches.His widow, Sandra, who also worked for the Department of Corrections, said this week: “Reg loved people. He was kind and looked for the positive in all situations.”She added her husband’s background in Sandys had been humble. Mrs Gomes said: “His family didn’t have much.“Reg always said he knew we were on this earth to help people, and he initially wanted to be a PE teacher or social worker. But his father died when he was young, and he could not fulfil these dreams. He chose the Department of Corrections.”Mr Gomes told The Royal Gazette in 2015: “There is always the ongoing battle of getting organisations and charities to allow prisoners to work for them — the stigma is very hard to break.“But we have to change mindsets one case at a time.”Mrs Gomes said her husband was so respected by former inmates that they often approached him in the street to thank him. She added: “They always appreciated how he did his job. He tried to help them as best he could.”Dennis Brown, a former Trojans captain, now the team’s technical director and senior coach, grew up with Mr Gomes from their days at West End Primary School.The two worked together in the prison service, which Mr Brown joined in 1985, after he and Mr Gomes were colleagues at an international business.Mr Brown said his friend was “a humble spirit — you never saw him get angry”.Mr Brown said: “He was a quality goalkeeper, identified by the Somerset youth director in 1975 to join the programme.”The under-16 team went to a “mini World Cup” in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, the next year, where Mr Gomes was the No 1 goalkeeper.The two were also picked to travel to England as part of the Schoolboy Select Team in 1980, where Mr Gomes was again the No 1 keeper — and got to see Nottingham Forest, then the European champions, train.Mr Gomes played with Warwick United from 1980 to 1985 before he joined Trojans. He played for the club’s top team from 1986 to 1992.A high point came in 1989, when Somerset played Mr Gomes’s Arsenal at an exhibition match in Bermuda, with Mr Gomes as “the man of the match”.Mr Brown said Arsenal were the victors after Somerset scored an own goal with 12 minutes left in the game. He added: “He was tickled pink when he found out my daughter, his goddaughter, was an Arsenal fan as well.“He was everything, when it came to serious, he was a very serious guy.“But he would always give advice, even in prison, he always saw the good in every situation. He was always about positive outcomes.”Keeva Joell-Benjamin, the Acting Commissioner of Corrections, said Mr Gomes was “a role model to not only the inmates but staff”.She added he joined the Bermuda Prison Service, as it was then known, in October 1990 out of a desire to serve with a team and offer leadership.Ms Joell-Benjamin said: “He was also looking to take on a challenge in which he could assist others.”Mr Gomes, who worked at all the service’s institutions, became Divisional Officer in 1998, Principal Officer in 2006, and became Chief Officer in 2014.He was awarded the Colonial Long Service Award for 18 years’ service in 2008, and for 25 years’ in 2015, before he retired on his birthday in 2017.Ms Joell-Benjamin said: “CO Gomes demonstrated all of the department’s core values which include professionalism, integrity, respect, accountability, dedication, courage and unity.“He had a strong desire to contribute in a tangible way to the department by empowering inmates to be responsible and productive citizens.”Mrs Gomes added her husband was devoted to the Somerset Seventh-day Adventist Church, and to giving back to his community. She said: “He loved Somerset for Cup Match, and in football he was a passionate Arsenal supporter.”The two travelled widely and visits to England always involved a trip to watch the North London side in action.The couple lived in Pembroke, but Mrs Gomes said: “Somerset was where his heart was. Every time we went, as soon as we got near, he’d say we were now entering God’s country.”A service will be held for Mr Gomes at Somerset Cricket Club, on June 21, which would have been his 58th birthday.Mr Gomes had a son, Regeno, from a previous marriage.Mrs Gomes said her husband was so loved by her family that at their wedding in 2009 at Grotto Bay, an aunt joked that if the marriage failed, they would keep him as one of their own.Mr Gomes died on May 26 in Boston. Mrs Gomes said: “He was very, very humble. I can just see him looking down, saying ‘I can’t believe it’ — all the love and support.“He just went through life helping and caring for people, and he expected nothing.”