DENIS WATTS was an outstanding professional coach for the Amateur Athletic Association for 30 years. He was responsible for many internationally successful athletes, including the Olympic medallists Ann Packer, Dorothy Hyman, Janet Simpson and Tim Graham.

Slim, cheery and painstaking, Watts was a formidable all-round sportsman himself. He played rugby for London Welsh and represented Hertfordshire at cricket. In 1946 he became the first man to win both the long jump and triple jump titles at the AAA Championships, and he retained the triple jump the following year.

Denis Watts was born in 1920 and educated at St George’s, Harpenden, where his father, Dr Arthur Watts, was headmaster, and Loughborough whose school of athletics, games and physical education had been set up in 1936.

During the war he served as an RAF sergeant instructor of physical training. He came close to death on the SS Anselm when she was sunk in 1941 with the loss of 1,200 troops. He always insisted bitterly that many officers were given priority over ranks in being saved, and kept for the rest of his life as a lucky mascot the handkerchief he had been carrying at the time of the disaster.

After the war Watts was appointed coach to the vast parish of the north of England. His friend John Le Masurier, who was to take Mary Rand to an Olympic gold medal for long jump and a bronze in the 4x100 relay at Tokyo in 1964, took charge of the south.

In later years Watts would laugh at the memories of the times he had to drive across the Pennines during the foulest of weathers. The blizzards and fog were once so bad that he got lost and ended up on the Grand National course at Aintree.

In the winter of 1958-59 it was suggested by northern officials that Watts oversee the coaching of the 17-year-old sprinter Dorothy Hyman, of Cudworth, near Barnsley. She had already done well with her local adviser, Eddie Fleetwood, but it was now felt that she could gain added input from Watts, who had coached the England 4x110 yards relay team, including Hyman, which won the gold medals at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games.

Hyman, who won silver in the 100m and bronze in the 200m at the 1960 Rome Olympics, recalled his diplomatic approach: “He was a sensitive man, determined not to upset my coach or me, sending me a Christmas card explaining he’d be glad to help. Later he said he’d never pampered me because all you need is to guide the rudder and encourage.

“I had complete confidence in any training schedules he sent me as well as his analytical work on my technique. Just before big races he’d say: ‘Go on, you show ’em. Show ’em your Yorkshire guts — you can do it’.”

Probably the greatest middle-distance runners coached by Watts were Lillian Board and Ann Packer — the former died from cancer at only 22, and the latter was an Olympic 800 metres champion in 1964. When Watts began to help George Board, Lillian’s father, to coach his daughter, he said of her: “As the French say, this is the kind of girl who can seize the moon in her teeth.”

Board, having won a silver medal over 400 metres in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, took the European 800 metres title the next year in what was to be her final season. Packer (now Ann Brightwell) recalled that Watts told her that she was never going to be world class in the 200 metres, so he took her up to 400 carefully. Watts had predicted that she would certainly run 2min 5 sec for two laps before the end of the year. In Tokyo, as she recalled: “I won the gold with 2min 1.2sec, a world record, so Denis had me absolutely on course.”

Among the many men internationals he coached Watts liked to cite the 400 metres runner Tim Graham, Britain’s lead-off man for the 4x400 metres relay team which took Olympic silver medals in Tokyo — “Because I had to make him believe in himself”.

Watts was appointed MBE in 1976. He is survived by his wife Stephanie, a son and two daughters.

Denis Watts, MBE, athletics coach, was born on July 31, 1920. He died on June 10, 2005, aged 84.