It was a balmy evening for the first ever boxing event at the Lamex Stadium in Stevenage and Andy Lee sat a few rows back as the man who once dispossessed him of his own middleweight title danced around the ring erected in the centre of the pitch.

It was well past 10pm by the time Billy Joe Saunders' hand was raised following 12 one-sided rounds against the little-known Shefat Isufi which anointed him the new WBO super-middleweight champion but Lee was more worried about the next steps of his own journey.

It was May 2019 and therefore over two years since he had last boxed as a professional and around 15 months since he had officially called time on his career.

Initially, he was not entirely sure what he wanted to do with his life after boxing but that night at the Lamex it was clear where he was headed. He had never coached a professional fighter in his life but that was about to change.

Sitting next to him that night was a teenager who few in the crowd had ever heard of, much less seen throw a punch. But Lee was convinced this kid was ready to be a star. "I wasn't looking for a route back into the sport," Lee had told this writer that night in 2019. "But this kid can go all the way.

"We will make sure he is ready when the time comes. I think we're looking at around three or four years before he's a contender. In year four he will be 24 or 25 and that will be the right time, he will be coming into his peak as a welterweight.

"He has it all. He’s a bit flashy, the blonde hair, he looks like a star in the making - he even has a great name: Paddy Donovan."

And, although their joint assault on professional boxing officially started five months later in October 2019, the truth is that the Lee-Donovan story goes back well before that.

Donovan was only a kid when Lee's brother Roger first trained him as an amateur and believed he had a trump card when it came to motivating the youngster.

Roger's more-feted brother had already been to the Olympics and turned over under the tutelage of the great Emanuel Steward in Detroit. He had swiftly emerged as an exciting southpaw puncher and there were hopes that the kid from Limerick could go onto become full world champion.

In November 2009 with a 19-1 record, Lee returned to his home city to box as a professional for the first time. He won that night, beating a man called Affif Belghecham over 10 rounds before a second successive outing at the same University Arena six months later.

That night Lee stopped Mamadou Thiam (49-11, 46 KOs), who failed to emerge for the third round citing a back injury. Crucially for Roger, he returned to the club with his big brother's fight-worn gloves.

It was there that Roger laid down a challenge to the young Donovan brothers, Paddy and Edward, that whoever won the Irish title out of them could keep the gloves. "I remember them, they were some 10oz Everlasts," Andy Lee tells The Ring. "I would say the brothers would have only been 10 and 11 at the time, something like that. The problem was, Paddy got disqualified in the final and Edward won his final and got the gloves."

Incidentally, it was another more infamous Paddy Donovan DQ which has now led the pair to the most important night of their alliance to date as the 26-year-old 'Real Deal' faces Lewis Crocker for the vacant IBF welterweight title.

The rematch comes just six months on from the night Donovan was thrown out by referee Marcus McDonnell for flooring Crocker after the bell to end the eighth.

But when unified titleholder Jaron Ennis moved up to 154 pounds and relinquished all his welterweight titles, the stakes in this fierce all-Irish rivalry were cranked up even further for the rematch, which takes place at Windsor Park on Saturday, live on DAZN.

It means that Lee, widely considered one of the best boxing coaches on the planet, is now just one victory away from his first world champion. The fact that it could be Donovan who bestows that accolade on the former WBO middleweight king, feels fitting given the history.

Although higher profile names and bigger commercial draws, such as Joseph Parker, Hamzah Sheeraz and Ben Whittaker, have since joined up with Lee in Dublin, the one constant throughout his entire coaching career to date has been Donovan.

"My first fighter," Lee nods. "I started with him, or should I say, we started together. In the meantime there have been lots coming, a few gone, but more in the doors with bigger profiles and bigger names.

"But I think it's almost fitting that if he wins - or when he wins - he will be the first world champion that I've trained. Full world champion."

The weight of that accolade is not lost on Donovan, either. The 26-year-old takes up the story. "We go back a very very long time," he adds. "Yes Roger was a coach at my gym, but even before that.

"Andy was a boxer at St Francis and his coach was Shane Daly, who was my amateur coach too. But Andy gave up boxing when he was 15 and went working with his dad. But Shane Daly went to his door and said 'we have to get Andy back in the gym'. So then Andy was training with Shane for many years before the Olympics.

"He then went with Emanuel Steward and moved to America but Roger became my coach, along with Shane Daly and my dad. Andy would be popping back from the States and coming into the gym so I got to meet him. We always had a great relationship.

"But to be honest I didn’t see myself being with Andy in the future, we never thought that was potentially what would happen. It was never like that, we never imagined that but maybe we imagined seeing how far the boxing world could take us."

As Lee says, It has not been an easy road for the duo. After racking up three wins in as many months to kick off his career, the progress slowed. An initial deal with Top Rank came to an end and Lee fought hard to get his boxer the exposure he needed while Donovan (14-1, 11 KOs) fought in the ring. The Crocker DQ is the solitary loss on Donovan's record.

"Back in 2019, I just felt like it was now or never," Lee explained to The Ring.

"I recognised the talent but if I didn’t take that step then, even if I might not have been ready for it, somebody else would have signed him. It might not have been the perfect time but there's never going to be a perfect time.

"I took a chance because I knew what he could do and a talent like that shouldn’t go to waste. It has not always been an easy road. Sometimes we were fighting here and there, with Top Rank or on Matchroom cards, but he has earned the right now. He is fighting at the top of the bill for the world title."

Lee spent years under Steward, living with and learning from him, before another extremely close fighter-trainer relationship with Adam Booth, which gleaned the world middleweight title in 2014. It is obvious that the bond between Lee and Donovan is equally crucial.

"He started his coaching career with just me and him here in Ireland," Donovan adds. "There were some very, very cold mornings, 8am, 9am, just me and him bouncing in and out of the gym together.

"He put his trust in me and has always told me I'd become a world champion. For me to become a world champion and be his first fighter, the reason he became a coach, to be an Irishman just like him, I think it would be a great thing to give back to Andy."