Remembering Brendan Ingle

The man who guided Prince Naz to success. Excellent trainer.

 

The GOAT figure of UK boxing.

Proper old school Irish Catholic man.

 

Loved the Ringside programme on Sky covering the Ingle gym.

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Great guy, i had the pleasure and privelege of meeting him once at the Gmex in Manchester years ago, had a really good interesting chat with him about boxing, if only the sport had more like him, it would be in a much better place than with todays shysters.

 

I always find it odd when the likes of Naz and Barry pay tribute to him but then the way they carry themselves isn't remotely reflective of Brendan's character and values.

 

He was a Protestant. Except for that, I agree with what you said. True Legend. GBNF.

 

Also developed an interesting in ring style of his own. Old school in many ways and an innovator in a lot of others.

 

Ingle of course produced fighters that were elusive and punished openings in ring, with a lot becoming champions British to of course world level. He had his fighters fit and prepared with the best possible chance to win. He always had his fighters best interests at heart.

He also deserves as much credit for the amount of good he did getting kids off the street and teaching them values boxing and life skills, old school in so many of the right ways.

 

Brilliant man. Absolute legend.

 

I met Brendan Ingle in 1992 on my lone trip to England. It was in March and I wanted to go to a pro show and sadly learned it was the “off season” (I had no idea boxing had a season, haha, being from America) and there were only a couple to choose from. The other was in Scotland (maybe there were one or two more, I dunno, but I got the schedule from Boxing News). This one was in Hull.

So I managed to call and track down the promoter and was able to get in (long story short, it was a ‘black tie’ show and I had to have dress pants, a white shirt, a tie and a black jacket — well I wasn’t wealthy so I went to a Tesco’s or something like it and got a white shirt and tie, I had some decent pants and wore my black leather jacket as I couldn’t afford a dress jacket … and it got me in, haha). Took a train, got a room at a bed-and-breakfast and went to the show.

Ingle had Tony Booth on the card (he won iirc). I, of course, had no idea who Ingle was, but I was actually introduced from the ring announcer (they put me at a table ringside along with the judges and such) as ‘coming all the way from America just to see this show,’ lol. And afterward I went around meeting fight people as best I could — and Ingle couldn’t have been nicer. He had Johnny Nelson there (not on the card, just tagging along to support his gym mate I’m sure) and we chatted boxing and they were great. Also got my picture taken with Ingle and Nelson, although it is long lost.

Of course when he showed up with Naseem Hamed years later, I was like ‘I met that guy!’ And Nelson eventually went on to some success (if not too much excitement inducing) and I rooted for him from afar since I had met him too.

So that’s my Ingle story. He didn’t have to give me the time of day but he instead welcomed me as a fellow boxing person and added a nice memorable side story to my journey. (Also by pure happenstance met Paul Hodkinson on a side trip to Liverpool, but that’s another story.)

 

I recall a story about Ingle when Naz broke through to big-time kind of addressing his style of training and how his guys had a different approach. It talked about the footwork diagrams on the floor of the gym and his training methods.

There was a line, or maybe a quote, that stuck with me: “Brendan Ingle’s fighters even walk to the gym backwards,” haha.

 

Ingle always used to focus on footwork with his fighters, if the fundamentals good he built on them.

Just a very good trainer, people person also.

Im not a regular poster here anymore but know St pat, know you have boxed I read ipast irc? Certainly around gyms