Tommy McGuiness
Boxer. Born: July 21, 1937; Died: February 7, 2015.
TOMMY McGuiness, who has died aged 77, was a celebrated Scottish internationalist amateur welterweight boxer who built up a cult television following in the 1950s and 60s among Scottish viewers who watched weekly televised amateur boxing shows.
He was born in one of Scotland’s most historically iconic boxing towns, Craigneuk in Lanarkshire, which produced Scotland’s only middleweight ever to fight for a world title, Tommy Milligan. Scotland’s first ever British light heavyweight champion, Chic Calderwood, was also born there.
Many other great Scottish amateur and pro champions came from Craigneuk and its environs, but McGuiness’s father had an unusual motivation for enlisting his son in the now defunct Wishaw Priory Amateur boxing club. Many youngsters are sent to boxing clubs to calm their youthful flamboyance and aggression and channel it in a socially productive direction.
However, it was McGuiness’s painful natural shyness and lifelong capacity for self-effacement that made his father enrol him in the Priory ABC. As is sometimes the case with some naturally shy youths, the young Tom discovered that he was fluent in the language of boxing.
Consequently, after joining the more famed Lanarkshire Welfare ABC, McGuiness won a clutch of junior Western District and Scottish national titles with a brand of confident, fierce combativeness. Indeed, such was the impact of the young McGuiness on local and national Scottish amateur boxing that he attracted the admiration of Joe Aitchison of Dalmarnock who was in the top three of Caledonian boxing coaches, having worked with many champions.
McGuiness flourished at Aitchison’s Dalmarnock club in Glasgow’s east end, honing his skill and power-sparring with the likes of world-rated bantamweight Billy Rafferty.
Working as a bricklayer also toughened up McGuiness who not only won Scottish Senior titles at welterweight but also became a big favourite for his all-action, big-hitting style on TV boxing shows where he rubbed shoulders with such popular luminaries as Dick McTaggart and Bobby Keddie.
But as McGuiness’s brother Peter pointed out, the popularity and celebrity his sibling’s style brought him did nothing to alter his natural shyness, which remained a hallmark of his character.
In 1959, he was called up for national service along with future 1962 Commonwealth Games featherweight gold medal winner, John McDermott who recalled he and McGuiness joining the Royal Scots regiment on the same day and subsequently boxing for the regiment all over Europe.
“Tom was outstanding when we – the Royal Scots regimental boxing team – won the British Army on the Rhine Army boxing championships by seeing off other regiments’ boxers including many top English, Welsh and Irish professional and amateur boxers,” said McDermott. “But then I wasn’t surprised, as he had boxed for Scotland in the 1958 Commonwealth Games.’’
McGuiness had also boxed for Scotland in the 1957 European championships in Prague and it took opponents of the quality of Irishman Freddie Tiedt to overcome the Craigneuk man.
Like his great Scottish amateur boxing team-mate Dick McTaggart, McGuiness scorned joining the paid ranks, although enquiries and offers were made by various professional boxing managers.
So, after his boxing career ended, he took up his trowel again as a bricklayer before latterly working as a taxi driver until his retirement.
He also lived quietly with his father until his father died in 1989 after which he lived with his partner, May Backwood, who survives him. He is also survived by his two brothers, both of whom also boxed.
McGuiness proved, in an illustrious amateur boxing career, that it is possible to win titles without personal flamboyance or self advertisement, which he personally, assiduously, avoided throughout his life.