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| Terry Lawless obituary Boxing trainer and manager who produced four British world championsTerry Lawless, who has died aged 76, after a gall bladder operation, will be remembered as one of boxing's outstanding managers and trainers, having guided four fighters to world titles and watched two others become world champions after he had parted company with them. His was a career that blossomed in the 1970s and 80s, in a promotional alliance with Mickey Duff, Jarvis Astaire and Mike Barrett, when Lawless became one of the most influential and respected figures in British boxing history.His world champions were the welterweight John H Stracey, flyweight Charlie Magri, light middleweight Maurice Hope and the Scottish lightweight Jim Watt, but his name will also be forever linked with those of Lloyd Honeyghan, who became world welterweight champion after splitting with Lawless, and particularly Frank Bruno, whose career he moulded with painstaking care before they split prior to "Big Frank" winning his world heavyweight title at the second attempt in 1995.It can be something of a boxing cliche to say that a trainer treated his fighters like his own sons, but few can have offered more in terms of emotional and physical support. With his wife of 53 years, Sylvia, he would often take fighters into his own home before major bouts, reasoning that nobody was capable of attending better to their needs and that they would be mentally and psychologically honed to perfection by the time they stepped into the ring.Lawless was born in West Ham, east London, and was a boyhood friend and later best man at the wedding of Sammy McCarthy, who would go on to become British featherweight champion. Although Lawless never boxed himself, it was a friendship that inspired an involvement with boxing that saw him first work as a trainer and then, after completing his national service in the mid-1950s, take out a boxing manager's licence.He and Sylvia ran a shop in Leyton, which he continued to own after boxing, but it was the Lawless gym above the Royal Oak pub in Canning Town in London's East End where he achieved his fame, employing such figures as Jimmy Tibbs, Frank Black and George Francis to work as his training team and cornermen for the fighters he managed.Small of physique, quietly spoken and polite, Lawless had an encyclopedic knowledge of the boxing world, with a remarkable memory helping him assess fighters, their strengths and weaknesses. He managed dozens of fighters in his career and, in addition to his formidable list of world champions, he masterminded the careers of the likes of Mark Kaylor, Kirkland Laing, Gary Mason, Horace Notice, John L Gardner and Jimmy Batten, as well as many of more limited ability. For all of them, he was always a calm and compassionate cornerman whose concern was, above all, his fighters' safety.Lawless's greatest work was probably in developing the strong but raw novice Bruno into a fighter of world renown. His critics said he matched him too cautiously, but the regular appearances of Bruno on BBC Television ensured that his fighter earned a place in the sporting nation's heart even if the calibre of some opponents was questionable.His partner Duff spoke of Lawless in his autobiography saying: "Terry's attitude to opponents was simple. He wanted to impose a condition that they could defend themselves, but couldn't hit back. He worried about his fighters if there was nothing to worry about," but Duff conceded: "I don't think anybody could have done a better job in Bruno's formative stage than Lawless did."Their association ultimately led Bruno to his first crack at the world title, when he took on the then intimidating figure of Mike Tyson in Las Vegas in 1989, only to be stopped in five rounds. Although the Lawless-Bruno partnership had broken up by the time Bruno achieved his lifetime's ambition in winning the world title, the fighter was distraught at hearing of his former mentor's death.Watt, now a commentator with Sky, recalled a phone call he received from Lawless in 1975 shortly after Stracey had won his world title in Mexico. Disillusioned by the lack of success in his career, Watt was told by Lawless that he could achieve more if he signed with him. "That one phone call just completely changed my life," said Watt, who would win the world title four years later. "If Terry hadn't picked up the phone that day, I'm not under any illusions, I would never have been world champion."Lawless's career was not without controversy, and he had to face a British Boxing Board of Control hearing after details were made public by the Sunday Times and News of the World of a profit-sharing contract that existed between Lawless, Duff, Astaire and Barrett. The trade paper Boxing News wrote a front page editorial saying: "As a manager Lawless has a responsibility to keep his boxers winning: from this agreement, it follows that in effect he also has an interest in ensuring that the overheads of the promotions at the Albert Hall and Wembley [where the three promoters staged their shows] be kept as low as possible."Despite the huge wave of bad publicity, the BBBofC cleared "the Cartel", as it had become known, of any wrongdoing and what could have proved to be a stain on Lawless's reputation was formally erased, even if the damaging impact of negative press coverage was something Lawless and his colleagues were unable to escape.One of the last fighters Lawless managed was Joe Calzaghe, whom he took to a British title before Calzaghe signed with Frank Warren. Although he might have secretly harboured his own disappointments, it says much of Lawless that he was among those to contact Warren 12 years later to express his disgust over Calzaghe's decision to ditch his promoter and be self-managed for his final contest against Roy Jones Jr.Lawless lived his last years in Marbella, Spain, but had been in poor health recently, after failing to recover from surgery to his knees. He is survived by Sylvia and by their two children.• Terry Lawless, boxing trainer, born 29 March 1933; died 24 December 2009BoxingJoe CalzagheJohn Rawlingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The best team realistic money can buy, all for $80 million Our annual exercise to field a team based on the major league median payroll yielded a fleet, flexible team. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Togo were shot at, three men died – and now they have been ‘disqualified’ The lights were dimmed in Cabinda’s new Chiazi National Stadium and almost 600 stewards melted away into the night as the ring of steel erected to guarantee security was dismantled. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
Waterlogged pitches cause postponements across UK Portsmouth v Birmingham is the first Premier League game to be postponed today. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
Ospreys charged over fielding 16 players • Club and full-back Lee Byrne to face charges on Friday• Leicester lodged official complaint with European Rugby CupThe organisers of the Heineken Cup today charged the Ospreys, and their Wales full-back, Lee Byrne, with misconduct after Leicester complained that the Welsh regions had 16 players on the field for some 50 seconds during the match between the sides in Swansea last Saturday.Roger O'Connor, European Rugby Cup Ltd's disciplinary officer, filed the charge after spending two days gathering evidence from the two sides and the match officials on duty at the Liberty Stadium. He also viewed video footage of the incident which happened in the last quarter when the Ospreys were leading by five points.A three-man disciplinary panel will hear the case in Dublin on Friday.Leicester have asked for the match to be replayed, arguing that Byrne prevented a potential try from being scored by getting in the way of their scrum-half, Ben Youngs.England were fined for having an extra man on the field during their 2003 World Cup match against Samoa, but a misconduct charge carries an open-ended list of sanctions. It is what Harlequins and four individuals, including Dean Richards and Tom Williams, were hit with after the fake blood substitution in their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster last April and Quins faced being thrown out of the tournament.Wales will wait for the outcome with concern. If Byrne is banned, he faces missing the opening Six Nations match against England at Twickenham.OspreysLeicester TigersRugby unionPaul Reesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |