Boxing guru, 78, taking Tiktok by storm
Frank Gilfeather once fought the great Ken Buchanan, now his ‘Noble Art’ teachings have garnered a global following
Frank Gilfeather never expected to be a viral internet sensation dominating the boxing-influencer game at the age of 78.
Yet, in the past few months, the Scotsman, who fought the great Ken Buchanan as an amateur, has garnered 400,000-plus global followers.
Gilfeather’s no-nonsense methods for teaching boxing – “laddie, get your body through your right cross” – and an unbridled love of the sport have made his videos go-to material for boxing fans, Tiktokers, and those who admire his passion and love of the sport. Not to mention his unbelievable physicality as he approaches his ninth decade.
Last December, Gilfeather had 170 Instagram followers, now “Frank’s Noble Art” has 405,000, and, indeed, his branded boxing gloves are being snapped up – including by Frank Stallone, brother of Rocky actor Sylvester.
Gilfeather, a former journalist and television reporter – he had many a run-in with Sir Alex Ferguson when he was a manager in Scotland – has been boxing for more than 70 years, had 200 bouts as a Scottish champion including the fight with Buchanan, who is regarded as Scotland’s finest postwar boxer.
“The Instagram thing came later in the day, Tiktok was the thing that kicked it off,” explains Gilfeather, whose son Paul had filmed him throwing an uppercut and put it on Tiktok. “I didn’t grasp the potential enormity of it, before long the Tiktok thing just zoomed, it was fantastic. We used to post things occasionally on Instagram, and then all of a sudden, virtually overnight, it caught hold, it was like wildfire. It’s the feedback that pleases me.”
Gilfeather’s physicality belies his years.
“Well, lots of people mention my age, of course, and that’s fine… sometimes I can’t quite believe it. People say to me ‘why don’t you take it a little easier on the punch bag’, and my answer is, I do not know how to.”
Gilfeather started in the gym, run by his father aged four. “For me, it’s a proper workout, it’s not just tippy-tappy and looking good.
“I have found a lack of teaching in boxing as opposed to coaching. Why do we throw a punch like this, why do we block, why are we not thinking about defence? And this is the thing that I feel in the gyms that I’ve been around, few coaches actually talk about defence, they talk about attack all the time, but of course, defence is number one; there is no point, I tell kids, in going into a contest, winning it, but having taken a heap of blows in the process. It’s all about the violent chess, as I call it, the skill, outwitting your opponent.”
On the subject of modern boxing, Gilfeather says it is “too much circus”. “Let’s knock out all of this nonsense around boxing, let’s do it the way they used to do it in the old days,” he says before delivering his verdict on Tyson Fury v Oleksandr Usyk, the heavyweight title fight to be staged in Saudi Arabia next month.
“For me, it’s Usyk. I’ve been asked this before and Usyk’s a boxer, Fury is not. Fury doesn’t light my fire, he’s a one-two-punch-then-grab merchant. One-two-grab. It’s obvious why: he’s 20st, he’s 6ft 9in, he has zero mobility, he’s got to land the punches then grab. I think Fury may just be slightly going over the hill.”
Gilfeather, who never played rugby – “too brutal”, he says – recalls with circumspection his three-round featherweight defeat by Buchanan as if it were yesterday, rather than more than 50 years ago. He ended up underweight, but still had a great battle, managing “to get
‘There is no point, I tell kids, in winning but having taken a heap of blows. It’s all about the violent chess, as I call it’
under his jab and thump him in his ribs or the heart”. Gilfeather wanted a rematch but, by all accounts, Buchanan did not.
“These were great occasions, vying for the Scotland vest, and the atmosphere was electric. I did a stupid thing, at least my trainer Jim Brady did – and this was how primitive things were – we didn’t have a set of scales in the boxing club, but Jim had an antique set of jockey scales, the ones you sit on, and we used those.”
Gilfeather regales with tales of crossing Checkpoint Charlie to box in the European Championships in East Berlin in 1965, past “guards, guns and Alsatians”, recalled Harry Carpenter calling him a winner in a fight he was “robbed” of, and how, to his chagrin, he had missed out on a place at the Commonwealth Games in 1966 in Jamaica due to the politics and judging in amateur boxing.
Gilfeather was urged by Peter Keenan, who was the main promoter in Scotland, to turn professional and go to London to make his name.
“No one could beat me when I was 15, and at 16, I was even boxing guys like Freddy Owen, who was a Commonwealth bronze medallist and sparring partner of Walter Mcgowan. So, I had my focus on becoming a professional, but when I was 19, I was at a dinner, staged by the Daily Record newspaper to mark the winning of the world flyweight championship by Mcgowan.
“I’m looking round this table. Peter and the guys are wearing mohair suits, drinking the Napoleon Brandy and smoking Havana cigars. It hit me that night that these are the guys that are making money, and the boxers who are doing all the heavy lifting and the hard work, they’re the ones who are ending up with sore heads and broken careers and very little money. That was that night I decided not to be a professional boxer.”
As a journalist, Gilfeather enjoyed a long career but his love of boxing has never stopped him passing on the fighting art form. And there is no stopping him.
“If I’m still doing it in five years’ time, I’ll be really happy. If a kid sees how it’s done, it’s easy for him to replicate.”
And if Gilfeather continues, the followers online will just grow and grow.