Boxing: Cambuslang man celebrates 50th anniversary of gold medal

Dec 5 2012 by Andrew McGilvray, Rutherglen Reformer

Cambuslang man John McDermott, MBE, is a boxing coach with distinction, having himself achieved glory at the highest level.

The Blantyre Miners’ Welfare Amateur Boxing Club head coach last week celebrated the 50th anniversary of his historic Empire Games gold medal win in Perth, Australia.

On November 30, 1962, the then Cambuslang man defeated Kenyan Ali Dhuma to take the featherweight title and forever write himself into boxing history.

John (74) said: “I can’t believe it has been 50 years – to be honest it still feels like yesterday.

“Time has absolutely flown past since then and it was a terrific experience.

“I had a hard time getting to Australia; I beat a fighter called Evan Armstrong from Ayr in the final of the Scottish championships and got right through to the final selection fight before getting beat 2-1 in a majority decision.

“The selectors made me fight Evan Armstrong again behind closed doors in a transport garage in Possilpark, with just a handful of reporters and neutral judges.

“I beat him easily with a majority decision and was in the team going to Australia.

“I was a toolmaker at Rolls-Royce in High Blantyre, who gave me time off and wages, which was terrific.

“I remember when I won they sent me a telegram saying ‘from the best engines to the best fighter’.

“It was 23 hours on a plane, we had four or five weeks to acclimatise, and the Empire Games were done in about a week.

“I was lucky because the first fights were flyweight and bantamweight, so they were getting presented with their medals as I was heading to the ring, and Bobby Mallon was from Glasgow so they played ‘Scotland the Brave’.

“I felt like I was being raised to the roof and that really spurred me on.

“I was quite calm as I went in for the fight and I won it.

“We were going home on the Monday, so we had a couple of drinks over the weekend. I remember it was a terrible winter that year, so we flew to London and were to get the train from Kings Cross, but the weather was awful and we ended up having to go via Kilmarnock.

“It was 1am by the time we got home, but there were all these reporters waiting for me.

“I was given a week off work to recover, and when I walked through the gates they played ‘Scotland the Brave’ over the tannoy – that was great.”

John hung up his gloves in 1967 and started up a small gym in Burnbank a year later.

By 1969 he was approached by Blantyre Miners’ Welfare to become coach, and has been there ever since.