BRENDAN INGLE, one of Britain’s most renowned trainers, has passed away. He was 77 years old.
He set up a boxing club in Wincobank, Sheffield for young people in the community. The gym would become an institution in British boxing. He developed his own unique training methods and in the process produced some of Britain’s most successful boxers.
He guided Naseem Hamed from childhood to the heights of a career which saw him become one of the most famous boxers in the UK. Herol Graham, regarded as Britain’s best boxer never to win a world title, was a product of his gym as was cruiserweight world champion Johnny Nelson and many more.
“Brendan was a good teacher. He gives you confidence and self-belief. He makes you believe you can do anything you want, that you’re able to win a fight without the opponent touching you. I was in his household for two-three years, so I had that influence regularly. He taught me loads,” Herol Graham has told Boxing News. “It’s a discipline he instilled. If there’s none at home or in the gym, you get unruly children and unruly boxers.”
“Brendan got you dancing and singing in the gym, to give you a bit of confidence. You’d be in front of your mates so you weren’t bothered how embarrassing it was. Then, in interviews and stuff, you’d be confident because you’d been doing it for years. There was a method behind Brendan’s madness, we came across well and spoke well,” Ryan Rhodes, another of his fighters has recalled. “We’d be cleaning streets! Down Newman Road, where the gym was and in the Wincobank area, in the morning after training, during the school holidays, we’d be up and down the streets, cleaning, talking to people outside their houses,picking up litter, pulling weeds out; we got respect for that. It was Brendan’s way of getting us interacting at an early stage.”
His gym continues, run by sons Dominic and John Ingle, and continues producing quality fighters like Kell Brook.
Brendan Ingle has a unique place in British boxing history. He will be fondly remembered and sadly missed.
