WANTED, an eye-to-eye shoot-out with the deadliest aim in England, writes ANDY NEILD.

Armed with just a notebook and pen, I wound my way through the streets - the good, the bad, and the ugly - as Great Harwood town centre resembled a ghost town.

My fingers twitched as I stumbled across the saloon I'd been looking for (a gleaming Vauxhall Vectra).

Walking up to the house I suddenly found myself starring down both barrels as there he was, a silhouette in the light...

But Ian Peel did not chew tobacco behind a five o'clock shadow. This was no modern day Billy the Kid.

The illusion was shattered.

Or was it?

On entering his home, amid the giant trophies which immediately drew my eye, I noticed a stetson.

So just who is this man and what does he do?

Quick on the draw, he swiftly explained.

"I compete in what is known as the Olympic trap. But more people know it better as clay-pigeon shooting," said Peel.

He's rather good at it, too, as the hat bears testimony, a souvenir of his sixth place in the World Championships in Barcelona this summer.

Currently ranked top gun in this country, Peel was Commonwealth champion in 1986 and European champion 10 years later.

And he is also the reigning English and UK champion.

But just how did it all start for Great Harwood's golden eye? The cowboy hat could hold an important clue.

"I did play cowboys and indians when I was younger but I don't think I had any ambitions of being a clay-pigeon shooter.

"But you never know. I think young boys at that age used to run around with guns in holsters playing cowboys and indians.

"I think if you live out in the country like I did then it was something of a natural progression to move onto real guns.

"It's not as if you can go down to the park and have a kick-about with your mates. People are more individualistic and they get involved in the country sports like shooting and hunting."

Living on a farm in Slaidburn, he started off shooting 'odd bits of vermin' before progressing onto game shooting, using a shotgun.

He got into clay-pigeon shooting when he bought his own trap and soon tried his hand in competitions.

His rise was meteoric.

"I don't know what changed. Sometimes you see other sportsmen go through a barrier and they suddenly go from being ordinary to very good overnight.

"That happened to me. I seemed to wake up one day and found myself in the top 10 in the country."

There are many types of clay-pigeon shooting.

The version at which Peel excells - the Olympic trap - involves groups of six shooters firing in banks of 25 from six different stations.

The traps, which are set out 16 metres away, release the 4oz clay-pigeons at varying angles, from 45 degrees left to 45 degrees right, at roughly 70 mph.

You have two shots at each target to try and score a 'kill'. Don't try this at home, folks.

"It doesn't matter if you blow them into a thousand pieces or just chip a piece off the edge, they are both counted as a kill," said Peel.

A strong nerve, a sharp eye and the ability to co-ordinate hand and eye are the ingredients which make a good shooter.

These guys are lethal from 20 yards. Andy Cole, eat your heart out.

Peel scored 200 out of 200 for the second time in his career to win the English Championship this year - a feat no-one else in this country has ever managed before.

But it's not all about technique.

In the white-hot intensity of top competition, controlling the pressure and that 'little man inside your head' determines the difference between success and failure.

"You need to be strong on the inner mind verses the outer mind," said Peel.

"It's hard to explain, but sometimes you get this little man inside your head and he talks to you and tells you about all the negative things.

"It is being able to control him rather than letting him control you which is the key.

"He'll talk to you saying things like 'You're not shooting well', the weather's not so good', the sun's in your eyes'.

"You've got to train yourself to block that out and think positively."

Being a minority sport, competitors have to be dedicated.

The financial rewards are small. Victory in the English Championship reaped only a meagre £150.

Compare that to the expenses - he goes through 16000 cartridges at 10p each and 4000 clay-pigeons at 8p - in a year. That works out as a lot of money up in smoke.

Only 11 centres in the country cater for Olympic trap despite there being between 400 and 500 clay-pigeon clubs.

For Peel, that means a fortnightly trek to Hull where he works with his coach Joe Neville at the East Yorkshire Gun club.

But at least he is better off than the English Commonwealth Games pistol team.

Due to new UK gun laws they must do their training in Zurich.

"Shooting, as a sport, has had a lot of bad press over the last four years after things like Dunblane.

"We've been unlucky in the sense that people have tended to blame the gun rather than the man.

"I know if you took guns out of society then people wouldn't get shot - I know a gun is an easy way of killing people.

"But there are other weapons and if the man is determind enough he will use something else.

"The pistol people have come out worse because they are not allowed to keep their guns in this country.

"I think that's wrong. It's an Olympic sport and a Commonwealth sport. They've done nothing wrong yet their sport has been taken away from them."

Peel now has his own sights set on the Commonwealth Games set to take place in Kuala Lumpur in the middle of September.

After a barren spell in the early 90s, he has fought back to win the European Championships in 96 - only the third Brit to do so and the first since 1980 - and claim sixth place in the World Championships back in June.

Further Commonwealth success would be the icing on the cake.

"I wanted to go to the Commonwealth's this summer and I set my stall out to do so.

"To be the best at your sport gives you a really good buzz.

"I have the ability to be number one and I strive to keep there."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.