Freddie Gilroy

Boxer Born: March 7, 1936; Died: June 28, 2016

FREDDIE Gilroy, who has died aged 80, was an Irish bantamweight boxing legend and between 1957 and 1962 was a veritable hammer of the Scots, thanks to his stunning left hook and rib bending body punches.

In only his second fight, Gilroy flattened Dundee’s Danny McNamee in two rounds and Clydebank’s Jimmy Creswell was not only knocked out in two rounds but taken to a Belfast hospital with concussion. Even home advantage could not prevent Gilroy inflicting mayhem on all his Scottish opponents.

Motherwell plumber Johnny Morrissey was a feared and proven big puncher but when he tangled with Gilroy in 1958 in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall in a British title eliminator for Peter Keenan’s crown, it was Morrissey who was taken to hospital with a broken jaw after being savagely knocked out.

A year later, Gilroy brutally ended Keenan’s reign as British and Commonwealth 8st 6lbs champion and Lonsdale Belt holder in 1959.

Edinburgh’s Jackie Brown was noted for his superb ring skills yet in 1961, less than a year before Brown won British and Commonweath flyweight titles in early 1962, Gilroy knocked him out in Paisley in typically dramatic fashion. Another who came off worst against Gilroy was Glasgow’s Billy Rafferty, who was noted for his toughness but was twice stopped inside the distance by the Northern Irishman.

It was Gilroy’s excitingly destructive style that attracted crowds of 15,000 to Belfast’s King’s Halls from his earliest days as a pro in 1957 (and often in the crowds was a young, obscure youth two-time boxing champion from Ballymena called Liam Neeson who hero worshipped Gilroy and sought his autograph).

Gilroy was raised in Belfast’s Ardoyne area where he met and came under the influence of ST John Bosco amateur boxing coach Jimmy McAree, a former top amateur flyweight and the man who would also guide Gilroy’s pro career.

Under McAree’s tutelage, the young Gilroy won nearly every amateur title available in Ireland and soon dazzled in international amateur boxing events too.

His progress was even more remarkable because even in his amateur days he had big problems making the 8st 6lbs weight .

Thus in the Melbourne Olympics year of 1956 Irish amateur boxing selectors initially told Gilroy he would not be picked because he was two stones overweight but he confounded them by losing the excess and making the Irish team for Melbourne – even raising, by public subscription, the £600 that Irish boxing bosses told him he himself would have to use to pay his own expenses to Australia for the Games.

Once in Melbourne, Gilroy raised real hopes of winning Ireland its first ever Olympic gold boxing medal when he sensationally knocked out the massive Soviet favourite for gold, Boris Stepanov. Next, Italian Mario Sitri was outpointed but Gilroy’s hopes of winning gold foundered when the judges awarded his East German opponent, Wolfgang Behrendt, a controversial verdict leaving Gilroy to settle for bronze.

On return to Belfast in December 1956, Gilroy decided to turn pro because his day job as an cloth inspector in a clothing factory did not give him the style of life that he would ultimately provide for his first wife, Kay, and their four children.

The January 1959 British title win over Peter Keenan – who remained fast friends with Gilroy – saw him go on to win European titles but lose a world title eliminator to French North African Alphonse Halimi in 1960.

But the bout that all Ireland and the wider boxing world wanted to see was the clash between Gilroy and his Olympic teammate Johnny Caldwell for Gilroy’s title. Gilroy was not keen on the bout, however, because he and Caldwell had been friends since their amateur days and he called it a “nonsense fight’’.

However, money talks and a large purse plus the promise of a world bantamweight title fight against reigning Brazilian champion Eder Jofre overcame Gilroy’s deep reservations about the wisdom of the clash with his old comrade.

That Gilroy won this October 1962 clash by cuts stoppage of Caldwell proved less important than his sensational decision to ultimately walk away from the lucrative return match. Gilroy claimed it was a matter of principle and he and manger McAree refused to pay a Boxing Board of Control fine imposed for alleged contractual breaches.

Gilroy never boxed again and became a pub and hotel owner in Donaghadee – a move which introduced him to habitual social drinking.

Furthermore, a Loyalist bomb which wrecked the hotel during the Troubles prompted Gilroy to emigrate to Australia for a few years but his return to Ireland was marked by problems related to his losing his savings, bouts of alcoholism and divorce from his first wife Kay.

Salvation and recovery was sparked by his relationship with his second wife, Bernadette, although he suffered a further blow when he lost his coveted Lonsdale Belt on a bus, never to be found again. He also worked latterly as a Belfast parking attendant.

Some might say that Freddie Gilroy was the greatest Irish boxing champion to never win a world title – that is a matter of debate. What is beyond dispute is that more than any other Irish boxer Gilroy was truly the pugilistic equivalent of Edward I of England.

Gilroy is survived by his extended family.