A Tribute To Brendan Ingle

This week the world of boxing lost one of it’s most well known and well respected figures in Brendan Ingle. Who died in hospital at the age of 77. In this post I will be looking back at his life and paying tribute to the great man.

Many boxing fans know him as one of the best trainers in the world guiding a number of boxers to world championships. However before becoming a trainer he had his own in ring career although he was definitely a better trainer than a fighter as he ended his in ring career with a record of 19-14 with only 6 knockouts.

After hanging up the gloves he spoke to his local vicar about setting up some sort of youth group so he could get young people off the streets and give them something to do. This idea would become a weekly dance class despite the fact that he knew nothing about dancing and the only thing he did know was boxing. These classes turned out to be an instant success however Brendan noticed that after the classes many of the children went out into the street and started fights. So he took out some boxing gloves so they didn’t hurt themselves, and after that the dance classes became a boxing gym and the Wincobank boxing club was born.

Brendan had a unique training method by making his fighters concentrate on footwork and defence it then allowed his fighters hands free for offence. This is a technique that has been copied by a number of trainers around the world.

Although he trained a number of fighters to world titles I think one of his biggest achievements was guiding Johnny Nelson to the WBO Cruiserweight title, because he wasn’t the best boxer in the world and after losing his first 3 professional fights many trainers would have dropped him as a fighter but not Brendan he persisted because he knew that Johnny had what it took to rule the world. Jonny himself admits that without Brendan he would of never won a world title he often calls himself a product of the gym. It has been reported that from the moment he was admitted into hospital Johnny never left his bedside.

He would guide fighters like Naseem Hamed, Junior Witter and Herol Graham to world title success. As a trainer he trained 4 world champions, 6 European champions, 6 Commonwealth champions and 15 British champions.

Away from boxing he achieved a number of honors of his own he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University. In 1998 he was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for services to British boxing and his work with the youth of Sheffield.

I hope by this post you can see what sort of man he was and the boxing community will miss him greatly rest in peace Brendan you will be missed.