Evan Armstrong

Featherweight boxing champion

1962 it took the eventual Scottish Commonwealth gold medal winner John McDermott to defeat Armstrong in a box-off in Possilpark

McDermott responded to Armstrong’s death by paying tribute to his old rival. “Evan Armstrong was one of the best boxers and hardest punchers that I ever encountered,” said McDermott. “He was also a lovely man outside the ring.’’

With 39 wins in 54 contests, Armstrong was more acquainted with ring triumph than defeat. Witness his knockout in 1966 of Edinburgh’s former 1958 Commonwealth games gold flyweight medallist Jackie Brown, a superb ring stylist. Also noteworthy was Armstrong’s defeat of Edinburgh’s supposed featherweight wonderkid Vernon Sollas.

Similarly, in 1971, Armstrong came from being well behind on points to Londoner Jimmy Revie to win the British featherweight title and Lonsdale Belt by stopping Revie in the 12th round. Three years later, Armstrong travelled 12,000 miles to Brisbane to stop Aussie Bobby Dunne in the eighth round for the Commonwealth nine-stone crown.

Survivor of a fractured skull in his youth after a cycling accident, Armstrong showed that he was a champion too in dealing with deep personal adversity. Faced with his daughter suffering from spina bifida and his wife becoming seriously ill, he still managed to look after his two children, work as a labourer and carry out demanding boxing training at the same time.

Fishing, breeding rabbits and following the fortunes of Ayr United were Armstrong’s main non-boxng hobbies.

Later life was cruel to Armstrong as he suffered progressively from Alzheimers disease. In 1998, in an interview with The Herald, he spoke about his first problems with his memory and how painting had helped him focus his thoughts.

“Boxing is definitely the cause of my problems but I would do it all again,” he said. “Fighting was my life. Now I have taken to painting and it is wonderful for me and I feel it is helping improve my condition. When I was at school I had no interest in art and I would rather have been in a playground fight.’’

Armstrong said his head injuries were first noticed when he was working as an electricity linesman.

He said: “My neighbour was always behind the wheel and it was me up the poles working with 33,000 volts. He drove me to a farm one day and I had to go back the next day alone. I thought I knew the area like the back of my hand but I couldn’t find the farm. I had no idea where it was and I was then sent to hospital and scans revealed I had cerebral injuries. I now have trouble with my sight as well as my memory and some people say my speech is affected.’’

Armstrong is survived by his family and his many friends and admirers within the wider British boxing community.