A NORTH-EAST college has been called in to teach Cambridge University students how to fight properly.

Members of the International Boxing Academy based at the East Durham and Houghall Community College in Peterlee were called in by the dons in a desperate attempt to improve their fortunes in their annual varsity boxing match against Oxford.

Cambridge has lost the match for 15 years running and now 12 students will spend this week in Peterlee on a crash course in boxing technique provided by some of the nation's best coaches.

Head coach Frank Collision said that the Cambridge students - who arrived yesterday - were a bit brutal compared to the more sophisticated County Durham trainee boxers.

He said: "The Cambridge guys are a bit rough and ready, and rely almost totally on brute force and determination. We will try to introduce an element of technique which we hope will give them the edge over Oxford."

Cambridge head coach Jim Coke said: "Victory over Oxford at any sport is a matter of historical necessity as far as we are concerned - we are fighting for hundreds of years of tradition and, with the help of the academy, we can turn recent history on its head."

College principal Ian Prescott said: "There's something of an irony in Cambridge coming to Peterlee, which illustrates just how far the college has come in recent years."