A YOUTH football coach accused of sexually assaulting a young player has told a jury that it was usual for him to share showers with boys after training.

Giving evidence in his own defence at Bolton Crown Court, 79-year-old Michael Coleman insisted that, in the 1970s, it was common practice for coaches to share communal showers with young players.

He told a jury that he had no shower at home and when he ran his Villa Park teams, based at New House Farm, near Leverhulme Park, he would not wait until the boys had finished washing to shower himself as the water would have gone cold by then.

In 2018 Coleman, formerly of Glaister Lane, Breightmet, was convicted of abusing boys and is now on trial accused of sexually assaulting another boy who was aged 14 or 15 in the 1970s.

The jury has heard allegations that the abuse began in the showers after Friday night training when Coleman asked the boy to clean his back.

It was said that within weeks Coleman started touching the teenager's private parts and would take him for drinks, plying him with alcohol and on some occasions taking him back to his flat in Grafton Street where he was indecently assaulted and, on one occasion, raped.

Coleman denies four counts of indecent assault and one of buggery.

Giving evidence from the witness box, he told the jury that he did not commit the offences he was convicted of four years ago.

In the 1970s Coleman, who was a previous manager at Westhoughton Leisure Centre, was living with his aunt in Vernon Walk, Great Lever, but admitted he also rented another flat in Grafton Street in order to "entertain a lady friend".

He said the boy may also have been to the flat but only in company with others and nothing inappropriate happened.

He told the court that he remembers his accuser as "quite a good footballer", he knew him as an adult and only a few years ago encountered him in Bolton Wetherspoons where they exchanged pleasantries

"Is the reason you remembered [the boy] because you, for your own enjoyment, sexually abused him?" asked Tim Ashmole, prosecuting.

"No, " stated Coleman.

The former football coach denied he was sexually attracted to young boys and suggested that his accuser, who he claimed to always have got on well with, was making the allegations with a view to getting compensation.

"I'd say he has latched on to opportunism," said Coleman.

The judge Tom Gilbart, is due to sum up the case this morning before the jury retires to consider their verdict.

The trial continues.