CARDIFF and Vale College Construction lecturer Bill Reynolds has good reason to celebrate boxer Lee Selby’s triumph in the IBF World Featherweight Championships – he was part of the team that coached him to victory.

Bill, who has been coaching at the St Joseph’s club in Newport for 30 years, has worked with Lee Selby since the Barry-born boxer turned professional five years ago.

On Saturday, May 30, Lee Selby went against Evgeny Gradovich and won convincingly. Bill, who was ringside acting as one of the four cornermen during the bout, said: “I felt elated when Lee won. We all knew of Lee’s ability and his strong points; his weak points are few and far between.

“But we also knew we were going against a bona fide champion, unbeaten Russian Evgeny Gradovich. He’s boxed out of LA with a very good team behind him – Lee winning was not a foregone conclusion.”

"Working as a coach for Lee is a pleasure because he is so committed to his boxing career", Bill explained.

“Lee’s always been really fit so we had no worries there – his idea of socialising is taking the dogs for a walk,” Bill said. “It was just a case of fine tuning. I was just one part of the massive team effort by Team Selby.”

"The boxer’s promotion team would now be seeking a number of high profile arena bouts for him", Bill said. But it’s been back to life as normal for the CAVC Construction lecturer, who is based at the College’s Cardiff Construction Training Centre in Cardiff Bay.

“Lee’s gone on to a huge round of media opportunities and interviews and he’s getting a bus parade around Barry,” Bill said. “Meanwhile it was back to work on Monday morning for the rest of us – last night I was back in the gym working with a 10-year-old who also wants to be a World Champion one day.”