Sydney Rose was a vascular surgeon at Withington and Wythenshawe hospitals, Manchester. He was born in Manchester, the son of Hyman Leonard Rose, a merchant, and Rebecca Rose née Tofield, and gained a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School. He qualified from Manchester University Medical School in 1941 and shortly thereafter joined the RAF. He was based in Scunthorpe and by the time he left the RAF had risen to the rank of squadron leader. During his time at Scunthorpe he visited some of the newly liberated prison camps on continental Europe and was deeply affected by what he saw: he would never speak of this in later life. Whilst at Scunthorpe he met a number of keen, and later famous, sportsmen, including Stanley Matthews, Raich Carter, Peter Doherty and Dan Maskell. This was the start of his lifelong interest in football and indeed tennis, which he continued to play into his eighties. It also fostered his interest in what would now be known as sports medicine. Following his demobilisation, he returned to junior surgical posts at Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he progressed up the surgical ladder. He became a registrar to Michael Boyd, where he developed his interest in vascular surgery. He spent a year training with Michael DeBakey in the USA, and during this time won a $1,000 prize on an American quiz show! In 1956, after his return to the UK, Sidney was appointed as a consultant in vascular surgery at Withington and Wythenshawe hospitals, later to become the University Hospital of South Manchester. He developed a keen interest in varicose vein surgery, and developed an extensive and successful private practice. He was an elected fellow of both the American and International Colleges of Angiology. Sidney lectured all over the world on various aspects of vascular surgery. His publications were on the subject of varicose veins and his particular interest was the 'weak wall' theory of their genesis. He also wrote a chapter in *Vascular surgical techniques* (London, Butterworths, 1984), edited by Roger M Greenhalgh and with contributions from many other distinguished surgeons. He was a founder member of the Vascular Society (of Great Britain and Ireland) and was its president in 1982. He was president of Manchester Medical Society in the same year, when he delivered his presidential address 'In thoughtful vein'. He had many interests outside surgery, particularly supporting both Manchester football teams - an undoubted skill! He was involved in looking after the survivors of the Munich disaster of 1958, when members of Manchester United team were involved in an aeroplane crash on the runway. He was a director of Manchester City Football Club from 1966 to 1986, becoming life president after he left the board. He was a keen piano player, at one stage owning two grand pianos, and once told me that he would play for up to two hours a day. He was a keen freemason, an avid stamp collector and kept tropical fish. He married Golda Cohen in 1943 and they had three children - Angela, Paul and Caroline. After retirement, Sidney spent his time equally between Manchester and South Africa, where he died on 29 January 2014 at the age of 96, a life richly lived.