Boxing fans will gather in Birmingham on Friday night to witness the final fight of a man who should be remembered for ever as Britain’s most spectacular sporting loser.

Even in the crowded gallery of British sporting failures, the career of Peter Buckley stands apart. Beside his record, the ski-jumping career of Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards appears only moderately unsuccessful; by his light, Tim Henman is illuminated as an indefatigable champion of Centre Court.

Buckley has lost more fights than any other boxer in the world. Throughout his 256 defeats, he has remained magnificently undeterred. While the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) remained desperately concerned that he would do himself a serious lasting injury, Buckley persisted, losing bout after bout.

In the past five years he has put together a particularly impressive losing streak, failing to win in 88 successive bouts. He has lost to 42 future world, European, British and Commonwealth champions, including Naseem Hamed, and has fought more bouts than any other boxer in the world. But this one, No 300, will be his last.

“I’ve had my eye on the 300 mark for a while, and it’s a little milestone I want to achieve, but I don’t want to fight on,” he said. “People keep saying to me that I’ll get a call in a few weeks’ time offering me a fight and I’ll say yes, but I mean it when I say this is it.”

There was a time, in the early 1990s, when Buckley did not seem destined for so luminous a career of defeat. He was a talented super-featherweight who won the Midlands area title. Then he discovered a more lucrative calling, as an opponent for boxers with hot prospects. He rarely won but had a good defence and took few punches. Over time his reflexes slowed and he became easier to hit. Now 39, he has matured into a consistent loser.

A commission in the United States suggested recently that boxers who lost ten consecutive bouts should lose their licences. Though the BBBC would have liked to have halted Buckley’s career, it has proved powerless to stop him. If boxers are medically fit, it cannot prevent them without risking a lawsuit for restraint of trade.

Buckley has sometimes boxed so often that he has turned up with a black eye before a bout. Though the governing body continues to send him for medical tests, Buckley continues to pass them. Throughout his career, he has kept himself in a constant state of readiness, ready to lose a fight at a moment’s notice anywhere in the country. Buckley has been known to agree to bouts as late as 8pm on the night of the fight.

“I’m always in the gym, so if I get a call a couple of hours before a fight, I usually say yes,” he said. “If you phone up a bricklayer and ask him to build you a wall, he doesn’t ask for three weeks to prepare.”

For his last bout, at the Aston Events Centre, Buckley has been given the rare treat of advanced notice and home-town advantage, and there is even a chance that he might win.

“I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s all over on Friday, but I’d love to stay in boxing in one capacity or another,” he said. “Boxing has been good to me over the years. When I was a youngster I was in trouble with the police, a really wild kid. But the sport has given me a focus in life.”

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