PETER COPE - TRAINER

Most boxing coaches can wait a lifetime to train a champion, but Peter Cope has achieved it before he has even turned 40.

Nigel Wright's stunning seventh-round stoppage of West Bromwich's Dean Hickman to win the English light-welterweight title in March at the Doncaster Dome was as sweet a moment for the coach as it was the boxer.

Cope is approaching his fifth anniversary as the trainer of the man who is hoping to follow Ricky Hatton and Junior Witter onto the world stage in the future.

Not only has Peter struck gold with Wright, he has guided Alan Temple to the British Masters lightweight belt.

The 39-year-old's success should come as no surprise - he could not stop winning titles as a coach in the amateur game. At the Boys Welfare Club in Hartlepool, Cope enjoyed triumph after triumph between 1989-1997.

Peter joined the Wiltshire Way gym as a 14-year-old in 1979 and boxed there until 1984, developing an interest in coaching as time progressed. He returned in 1985 to begin coaching the young talent there and the rest, as they say, is history.

Kevin Crumplin was Cope's first winner, a National Association of Boys Clubs champion in 1989. Further junior success followed in the shape of David Carter, Michael Hunter and Terry Rowley. There had been near misses too for Chris Hubbard and Stuart Longstaff.

His greatest moments came in amateur boxing's version of the FA Cup - the ABA Championships. Temple was the featherweight winner in 1992 and then became the light-welterweight king in 1994. In 1997, Boys Welfare completed a sensational double - precocious teenage flyweight Michael Hunter and exciting middleweight Ian Cooper both victorious at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

Yet, after that historic triumph, Peter retired at the tender age of 32.

However, he was lured out of retirement in 1998 by Gus Robinson who installed him as a coach at the team's then base upstairs in the Borough Hall on the Headland, working alongside the famous trainer, George Bowes.

When Robinson opened his new high-tech HQ in West View Road in 2002, Cope assumed the role of head coach, with Bowes specialising in working with the amateur club at the same premises.

Peter runs the gym which includes two champions - Wright and Temple - and two very promising talents the Buchanan brothers, Andrew and Paul. "I think this is as good as it's been," said Cope. "I'm very excited about the future."

To date, he has been in the corner on 1,300 occasions and still counting.