Being invited to interview Birtley Guru Graeme Rutherford, recipient of the national 2011 coach of the year award was a great honour for punchline as Graeme has achieved so much over the years.

Birtley last year produced ten area and five national schoolboy champions in Brentwood International Hall London, breaking the record for the most victories in one tournament, all under Graeme’s guidance.

Graeme has now trained 55 national champions during an eleven year career but hadn’t been awarded the coach of the year honour until this year. “When I first heard the news I thought it was a joke”, explained Graeme. “I had won a regional award from the council and I thought it was something similar. They probably felt they had to recognise me after Tommy Ward won the European championships last year.

“I hadn’t won it before possibly because I would argue with the board if my lads were overlooked for international competitions. I’m mellower now though and things are a lot fairer. People are picked to represent GB as a result of winning national championships, whereas before it was through talent and favouritism.”

After a past which witnessed Graeme in and out of prison, he joined Birtley Amateur Boxing Club, (then based at high Fell) to try is hand at the fight game but stopped boxing after his fourth fight and was in an out of jail. “I didn’t come back till I was 26 and I had 10-15 fights. I wasn’t a very good boxer I had the heart but wasn’t very technical”, he said.

As well as competing Graeme began training boxers and in his first year coached Danny Lee to a national schoolboy title. In his second he trained Tony Marsden to a senior ABA title and Travis Dickinson and Martin Ward both won schoolboy titles. This escalated and that same year Graeme coached John Lewis to a win over James De Gale and his brother Travis beat George Groves twice before winning the world schoolboy championships.

To continue reading buy issue 5 of Punchline magazine.