In addition to his club work, Howard was also a window cleaner, whose clients included former Liverpool boss Sir Kenny Dalglish.
Speaking before his final game as manager in 2005, the then 70-year-old said: “When you are doing it, it doesn’t feel like that length of time. But like life itself, when you reflect on it you wonder where the time has gone.”
He was inspired to become Marine’s groundsman after seeing the then Stockport manager Eric Webster mowing the grass at their ground.
“I asked him what he was doing and he said ‘They never sack the groundsman’. So I looked after the ground for five or six years as well.”
He earned a place in the Guinness World Records, external as the longest-serving football manager.
At his final Marine game as manager, he said: “The involvement and the craic with the players is what I’ll miss most. But I always said I would know the time is right and it is.”