Terry Lawless : by the man who knew him so well

[grim reaper]

http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/BN08/detail.asp?id=1418

BOXING manager and trainer Terry Lawless passed away on Christmas Eve, aged 76. Terry, who was inspired to forge a career in boxing by former British and European featherweight titleist Al Phillips, guided John H. Stracey, Jim Watt, Charlie Magri and Maurice Hope from the Royal Oak gym to the top of their respective divisions. Lawless was also involved with the early career of Joe Calzaghe as well as playing a huge role in the development of Frank Bruno, Lloyd Honeyghan and Mark Kaylor.



Dean Powell worked directly with Lawless; allegedly Promotion’s matchmaker spoke softly and poignantly about Lawless’ passing. “It was one of the saddest days of my life,” said Powell. “I got the call from Terry’s wife, Sylvia, early on Christmas Eve and it was obviously a big shock. I had last spoken to Terry 10 days prior to that, on the eve of the Don Broadhurst fight [against Lee Haskins], and we normally spoke on the phone every couple of weeks.”



“I’d seen him twice in 2009”, he continued. “In July and August, and he was slow on his legs, because his knees were bad, but we had lunch and he seemed in good form. It is one of the biggest shocks I’ve experienced and the loss of an absolute giant. We’d talked about Dennie Mancini’s loss a few months ago, Terry has gone now, Mickey Duff is not in a great place health-wise, so it was a really sad day, not just for Terry but for British boxing.”



“Terry would watch the fights on TV and would often phone me to talk about the fight,” revealed Powell. “Sometimes he’d phone me if he saw me working on a particular fight and say he’d listened to what was said in the corner and maybe I should do this or say that; his advice was always very constructive. I can’t really explain the loss, it is difficult – I’ve said many times before that working at the Royal Oak in that period in 1991, and to work with Terry and Jimmy Tibbs, was the equivalent of having a Harvard or Oxford university boxing education.



“I think my time at the Royal Oak between February and May in 1991 was also one of my happiest periods in my 23 years in this business. I also spent a lot of time in Terry’s company over the last 15 years during my holidays in Marbella. I shared some great times socially and had many long lunches and late evenings in the Spanish sunshine with Terry and his wife, Sylvie.



“It was great to work at the Royal Oak, even though it was coming to the end at the time, especially when you think of the fighters who came out off there. In the early-1980s to the late-1980s a lot of fighters came out of there and for a gym in a small part of London it became one of the most famous gyms of all-time.”



“Terry had a good boxing brain, he was very clear and concise in the corner. It was always very simple with Terry, he never complicated anything and he was a very good reader of a fight,” stressed Powell.



“He was very meticulous to detail. Before the Boxing Yearbook, Terry had a card index of all the fighters and would have little hand-written notes next to them saying whether they were orthodox or southpaw. He was also very fair but very strict in the gym. There were no hangers-on allowed into the gym and if you were allowed into the Royal Oak you came in under Terry’s rules. You sat on some tiered seating and wouldn’t dare talk to the fighters while they were training or start messing about.”



“I started to visit the gym as boxing fan around 1985,” he continued. “When on my visits to London Terry would always welcome me with open arms. At the time I was keen to try and forge out an amateur boxing career. However, as I’ve said many times, I was not good enough. On one of my visits I talked with Terry at length on this and told him I’d like to still be involved in boxing; he gave me great encouragement, telling me that the ‘Best footballers didn’t always make the best managers’. I told him that I was keen to learn how to train fighters; he pointed to the far corner of the gym and said that on any of my visits to London I should come to the gym and watch ‘That man over there’ as he pointed out Jimmy Tibbs. That was the best piece of advice he ever gave me.”



Sadly, it seems that one era of great British boxing characters is coming to an end; each successive loss means that the likes of Powell become the elder statesmen, a fact that was not lost on Dean.



He said: “You know what, it really hit me when I went for a run late on Christmas Eve and realised that with Terry’s passing two of the three people with who I’d been closest to in the last 22 years in Dennie and Terry were no longer here. I immediately phoned Jimmy on returning to my house and I joked to Jimmy that I was phoning to make sure he was still there and would be for a long time! Not in a nasty way but just in a way that shows time is moving on.”