Just wondered what some of the older contributers on here thought of this largely forgotton British Lightweight of the 50's and early 60's. He beat fighters like Willie Toweel,Kenny Lane,Jose Stable,Paul Armstead and Welterwights in Don Jordan and Peter Waterman.Lost to good men such as Carlos Ortiz and Bunny Grant and many thought he was robbed against Joe Brown in London in '61 in what was Ring Magazine's fight of the year. Even at the end of his career he took Welterweight contender Brian Curvis 15 rounds and in his last fight went 9 rounds against the great Emile Griffith the only fight in which he was ever stopped. Some of the old British Boxing buffs swear by him and say he was the finest British post war fighter,although of course that is arguable. Any thoughts?
A short stocky southpaw with a punch ,Charnley was certainly good enough to be a world champ ,but unfortunately came up against Old Bones Brown . My old Pub land lord used to go to all Charnley's fights and was a great admirer . Charnley comes from the next town to me ,and I worked with his brother once ,he was a boiler maker I beleive , we talked about Dave's fights against Brown ,he thought his brother was butted in one fight , the 61 fight was very close. Charnley got his revenge in the end, but by then Brown was an exchamp. Charnley's manager was a bit too brave for my liking, putting his tiger in with Emille Griffith was folly imo.Charnley tried his hardest, as allways, but got comprehensively drubbed ,not a wise match . Charnley was a smart man and made his ring earnings grow in business ,the money he fought so hard to get was invested wisely . A very good fighter , who just fell short against a great champ.
Cheers Mcvey.My old man who was an ex pug loved him.I believe Ernie Fossey waxed lyrical about him.I think with him just preceding Ken Buchanan he gets forgotten about.
A cracking fighter and like McVey says fought them all. Another man that would of been a title holder if he fought in the multi title times of the last 20 years especially. If you were talking boxing 25 years ago he was still still remembered as one of the best British fighters ever, even though he hadn't won a world title. I wonder how he would of went against Mr Hatton! I bumped into him back in the early nineties in Berkely Square, London. I'm a fitter welder by trade and had been working on a particularly dirty job. I introduced myself and had a chat with him about his career and he offered me his hand, I said "don't worry my hands our covered in dirt". he said "thats the colour of hard work, give me your hand" So that's my memory of him. Top fighter and top man. I was working for Johnny Pritchett at the time. Former British and commonwealth middleweight champ.
Great stuff Al.Like i've said my old man loved him.A fight between him and his successor Ken Buchanan would have been a great one.
Hugh Mcillvanney a writer ,I have real respect for, stated that Charnley would have given Buchanan a hell of a fight ,and Mcillvanney is a fellow Scot.
My dad sparred with Charnley for his 1st fight with Brown,Charnley whacked him with a right uppercut and drove his front teeth through his mouth piece and into his tongue,dad still talks about it to this day!:good
Yes,its Terry Downes,i see Terry almost every month,never seen him with the gun but quite often he has the cigar.:good
No we started our own association just outside London because it was getting too tricky for my dad to get back from the london meetings after a few pints! We are called the Home counties Ex Boxers Association,meet in a place called London Colney,near St Albans,Hertfordshire.:good
I had a good drink with Terry and some other fellas a few years ago at the Novatel in hammersmith. It was the boxing memorabilia do. As you can imagine with Terry the air was blue and that wasn't from the cigar smoke. There was plenty of banter and I started getting it at one point being a scouser. I had to tell him that even though I'm a scouser I was born in Paddington, his manor, which is true. Good day it was, i woke up on the tube at Oakwood station. I was living in Woodford at the time, cost me another score in a taxi to get home.
