Lloyd Honeyghan

[Loton Moocher 1,252]

Remember a lad out of our camp cliff gilpin fighting honeygan a giving him a good fight before loseing , gilpin getting the chance after closley defeating a mate of mine feck it was a close one 

[gnasher16 29,602]

16 hours ago, YOKEL said:

Remember seeing Floyd years ago outside York hall, we'd gone down with our local gym for the golden gloves or a.b.a's, can't remember which. He was still fighting at the time. Came over to the minibus we was in, chatting away and handing out photos. Lovely fella....

Re: the "Beckett" did you know the fella who ran it? Gary Davidson, ex pro, lightweight or something similar...was training with his son last year, none too shabby himself, runs a gym out Cambridge way...

Yokel

Yes i knew Gary quite well he was a bantamweight or feather i think....lovely geezer though he was actually a publican he had a pub down Surrey way and was then offered the Beckett and of course he snapped it up he took over from Tommy Gibbons as kids me and my brother would get dragged along by the ol man to watch him train but sneak out to his wife Beryl who was landlady and she would stuff our faces with crisps in them days the steps led from the main pub directly into the gym so you could sneak out unnoticed ....before Tommy the late great Danny Holland ran the gym.....Gary took over must of been early 80's he did a massive painting like a mural of ex fighters and started what was almost a boxing museum with all old memorabilia etc then the Scouser Billy Aird took over and auctioned it all off !....the Old Kent Rd was a rough tough place back then but Gary was such a well liked fella he never really had much trouble....the gym was really popular with fighters mainly due to the fact there was so many good trainers Lloyds trainer Bobby Neil, Earnie Fossey,Micky May,Dean Powell all trained fighters there at some point....infact Dean used to sleep there when he first came down here as he had nowhere to live....great days i forget Garys boys names now i know one of them died i think that was Clive who himself trained fighters.....Gary died must of been 10 or 12 years ago now he,s a much missed local character.

My apologies i went on a bit there you only asked if i knew him

Edited September 22, 2020 by gnasher16

[YOKEL 2,116]

On 22/09/2020 at 14:42, gnasher16 said:

Yes i knew Gary quite well he was a bantamweight or feather i think....lovely geezer though he was actually a publican he had a pub down Surrey way and was then offered the Beckett and of course he snapped it up he took over from Tommy Gibbons as kids me and my brother would get dragged along by the ol man to watch him train but sneak out to his wife Beryl who was landlady and she would stuff our faces with crisps in them days the steps led from the main pub directly into the gym so you could sneak out unnoticed ....before Tommy the late great Danny Holland ran the gym.....Gary took over must of been early 80's he did a massive painting like a mural of ex fighters and started what was almost a boxing museum with all old memorabilia etc then the Scouser Billy Aird took over and auctioned it all off !....the Old Kent Rd was a rough tough place back then but Gary was such a well liked fella he never really had much trouble....the gym was really popular with fighters mainly due to the fact there was so many good trainers Lloyds trainer Bobby Neil, Earnie Fossey,Micky May,Dean Powell all trained fighters there at some point....infact Dean used to sleep there when he first came down here as he had nowhere to live....great days i forget Garys boys names now i know one of them died i think that was Clive who himself trained fighters.....Gary died must of been 10 or 12 years ago now he,s a much missed local character.

My apologies i went on a bit there you only asked if i knew him

Only just clocked this...no need to apologize, cracking bit of history I think his boy (Gary jnr) has put a book together about the times there, and his old man in general. Don't know if it's out yet tho. Only knew him from the gym last year. Something told me you'd have known his old man... cheers fella ...

Yokel