Magnificent seven will pack a punch at dinner

IT WILL be the biggest parade of North East boxing champions ever to be assembled under one roof.

The occasion at the Derwent Manor Hotel tonight is a celebration dinner for Tyneside’s only ever world champion Glenn McCrory to mark the 30th anniversary of his epic victory.

Here is the list of our ‘Super Seven’ I will be introducing together with their belts before an appreciative audience:

GLENN McCRORY

British and Commonwealth cruiserweight champion who made history when he won the IBF world crown vacated by the legendary Evander Holyfield.

BILLY HARDY

British champion at bantam and feather who won a Lonsdale Belt outright and was also the Commonwealth and European feather title holder and a three-time world title challenger.

JOHN DAVISON Newcastle-born British featherweight champion who held the WBC international feather and superbantam belts and fought for the WBO world title.

JON-LEWIS DICKINSON Birtley’s ABA champion went on to become British cruiserweight king and outright Lonsdale Belt holder. He was also Prizefighter, Northern Area, and English champion.

STUART HALL

British and Commonwealth bantam title holder who lifted the IBF world title.

CHARLES SHEPHERD British, Commonwealth, World super-feather champion.

MICHAEL HUNTER British, Commonwealth and European super-bantam champion and IBF world title challenger.

It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

McCrory is centre stage at the venue where he set up his training and

Jon-Lewis Dickinson camp in preparation to becoming a world champion.

Back in those halcyon days, he fought no fewer than four times for world titles and I saw every one of those bouts, just as I did with Hardy’s three global endeavours which saw him travel to Laredo, Texas.

I was also regularly at ringside when Dava and Jon-Lewis successfully fought to have a Lonsdale Belt strapped round their waist. All of which makes tonight extra special on an evening of dining and boxing.

For young boxers to perform in front of not just the area’s elite but world-class performers makes it a special occasion.

North Road Gym in Catchgate and newly formed Consett club Fight Fitness Guru are hosting the night which will feature NRG boxers Thomas King, Imogen French, Zack Carhart, Shea Renwick and Reece Bolam and the FFG’s Matthew O’Donnell, Kieran Snaith, Archie Bell and Ollie Harrop.

McCrory will highlight the night in June 1989 when he defeated Patrick Lumumba before an ecstatic Stanley sell-out crowd to be crowned the world’s best against mammoth odds.

He went on to successfully defend his title before crippling weight issues overpowered him.

But Glenn has a second highly successful boxing career becoming a top-notch commentator on Sky at world title fights across the globe and still broadcasts to this day.

“It’s wonderful to be going back to where it all began with my world title training camp,” McCrory told me. “Thirty years is a special anniversary and I’m very grateful to my long time friend David Bourne of North Road Gym and the other officials for honouring me in such a way.

“To have present all our area’s greats like my old mate Billy Hardy and Stuart Hall who I watched from ringside follow me as a North East world champion makes it an extra special occasion.”