KEN Renshaw is probably Worcestershire's most courageous international sportsman.

He doesn't ski down mountains at breathless speed, drive racing cars at 200 miles an hour or pilot a horse over horrendous-looking obstacles in three-day eventing.

He sits by the waterside and catches fish. In trophy-winning quantities.

"I could drop a baited hook in your coffee cup," he says. And then grins as I grimace at the thought of a maggot slowing drowning in the Maxwell House.

Such accuracy would be beyond the skill of most people, yet Ken Renshaw is paralysed from the neck down.

Confined to a wheelchair since a road accident in 1979, he has simply refused to give up his favourite sport of angling.

With wife Di gritting her teeth and plunging her hands into cans of worms or tins of maggots to bait the hooks, Ken has travelled the world catching fish. From carp and tench in England to marlin off the coast of Tenerife and shark in the wild oceans around Florida.

He is an inspiration to anyone who thinks life has dealt them a bad hand.

In his case, it was a particularly raw deal. Because Ken was only 100 yards away from his home in Droitwich one evening in 1979, when the car in which he was travelling collided with an articulated truck.

Of the five people in the vehicle, Ken, the front seat passenger, was the only one seriously injured.

Altogether he spent 14 months in hospital, 10 in a spinal injuries unit at Oswestry and another four at Bromsgrove.

When he eventually came out, it was in a wheelchair, where, barring a miracle, he will be for the rest of his life.

Although officially registered as tetraplegic - no movement below his neck - Ken is better off than some, because he has developed very limited use of his arms and hands. He can drink a cup of coffee and smoke, which passes the time.

"I'd always loved fishing since I was a lad," he said. "I was born in Birmingham and dad used to take me out most weekends. We'd go fishing for eels, which the old man cooked and ate."

Of course the accident put paid to all that.

"After I came out of hospital I was so bored. I seemed to have nothing to do but sit and stare at the television or the wall."

Then Ken saw an advert in a newspaper by a fishing club for disabled anglers in Wolverhampton looking for members.

"I decided to have a go. I knew it was going to be very different because I obviously couldn't cast with a rod and line, so I bought a pole."

This would be better for him, because the length of line using a long pole is much shorter than with a rod and the angler can be more accurate. But it still needs skill and a great knowledge of the sport to be good at it.

Back in the old routine, but in a vastly different way, Ken took time to settle, but once he did, he was away.

All the old enthusiasm returned and in his specially-adapted car, he was ferried all over the country to fish, very successfully.

Radio and television caught up with him and Ken featured in one of the Challenge Anneka programmes with Anneka Rice in which they built a fishing centre for the disabled at Albrighton, near Wolverhampton.

He still holds the record for the heaviest carp caught there, a 14.5lbs specimen.

Among his other achievements, he has won the national championship for disabled anglers once and been second twice and has also fished for Wales in three world championships.

Last year, he finished fourth overall with mixed bags of roach, dace and eels.

Why Wales? "Because they asked me," he replied with a grin.

There's a chance Ken might be off to Italy with the Welsh team for this year's world championships at the end of September and if anyone can help with sponsorship his phone number is 01905 797085.

One of the spin-offs from Ken's success is that wife Di has been persuaded to have a go.

"I can't say I was very enthusiastic about baiting with worms or maggots at first or getting wriggling fish off hooks," she said, "but you get used to it.

"He kept on to me about having a go at fishing and in the end I gave it a try."

In her first contest Di was 7th out of 25, which was a pretty good start.

When the couple go on holiday, Ken invariably manages to get round to his favourite hobby, usually buying a cheap pole over there, so he can leave it behind if he has to. That's how come he has been deep sea fishing off Florida.

"Hard work," he said. "Very hard work."

But yet another triumph for a very determined man.