Stricken North Yorkshire boxer Paul Ingle will battle all the way in the biggest fight of his life, declared the man who first set him on the road to boxing.

As the likeable Ingle lies critically ill in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield recovering from the major operation to remove a blood clot from his brain, Malton-based trainer Tommy Johnson today insisted the 28-year-old former world champion would not give an inch.

Said Johnson: "Paul Ingle is a fighter. He is never a loser and he will fight all the way to come through this.

"He will keep battling and my only hope now is that the Lord helps him through to make a full recovery.

"Let's hope he comes through all of this and that there is no permanent damage to the lad."

The heart-breaking injury to Ingle was the 'saddest' moment in Johnson's 67 years, the trainer regarding the lad from Scarborough's Edgehill estate 'almost as a son'.

It was Johnson who first espied the raw talent in Ingle when he arrived at the Scarborough Amateur Boxing Club's Edmund Cockerill training base, as a tiny, but feisty nine-year-old.

The trainer became Ingle's guiding figure, a boxing mentor that steered the self-style Yorkshire Hunter to dominate the national schoolboy championships before his meteoric rise to the top of the world.

Today as his protg battles to come through the arduous two and half hour operation after he was smashed to the canvas by South African challenger Mbulelo Botile in the final round of the defence of his International Boxing Federation featherweight crown, Johnson's thoughts drifted back to their first encounter.

"He arrived at the club as a kid of nine-years-old and even then you could see he had that little edge, that little extra," said the trainer, close to breaking into tears.

""I could see then that he would be a winner. I always knew he had the potential to become world champion.

"But when I heard what happened to him it was the saddest moment of my life."

Johnson was unable to attend the fight in Sheffield due to other commitments and was unable to watch it on television. He conceded to the Evening Press that in a way he was glad not to have witnessed the cruel knockout blow, which has left the popular boxer battling for his life.

"I am at a loss to describe how I truly feel," he sighed.

"I spoke to him three days before the fight and he'd said then that after it he would come down to the club, where he is our president, and where he often pops in to wish all the lads the best.

"I just said to him what I always said 'keep your chin down and just do your best'.

"Now it's a very, very, very sad time. All my thoughts are with him and his family and I am just hoping to God that he is okay and that he pulls through with no lasting damage."

The Boxing Board of Control will now hold an inquiry into the incident to assess what lessons can be learned.

Board of Control secretary Simon Block said that he was more than satisfied with the medical attention Ingle had received at ring-side.