Brendan Ingle may have passed away this morning, but his legacy and impact on British boxing will never be forgotten according to Sky's head of boxing, Adam Smith.
Smith joined OTB this evening to discuss the life and work of the world-renowned boxing trainer, and praised his unconventional training methods, which led to Ingle producing five world champions in Johnny Nelson, Naseem Hamed, Clinton Woods, Junior Witter and Kell Brook
"I think he was controversial because he did things completely differently. Most trainers taught a very different way, a fundamental, textbook way, and Brendan Ingle ripped that up and did what he believed was right".
"He kept things simple, footwork, body sparring, he didn't believe in taking big lumps to the head in sparring. He believed that was the best way of doing it, that you didn't have to always entertain and dazzle. You had to come away win a win and your faculties in tact as much as possible and that was his belief".
"One of the things he did was take his fighters into prisons. All of the prisoners would have a crack at the fighters and try to knock them out, and they weren't allowed to hit the prisoners back, the prisoners were only allowed to hit them. Brendan took his boys in because he thought it would help them with reflexes, movement, and raising their awareness".
Ingle, born in Ireland before moving to England to live the majority of his life, ran the Wincobank gym in Sheffield, and was known for the good work he did with the youth of the city and his dedication to his gym and his craft.
"Brendan didn't mind who he brought into the gym. It was every ethnicity, every creed, whether you were white, black, Asian it didn't matter, everyone was welcome and everyone was treated the same".
"He lived across the road, he never moved even though he got money and success, he never moved from across the road from the gym. He was the first person in there in the morning and and the last person there to lock it up at night".
"He loved it, he lived for it, and his legacy will never be forgotten. What he did was something I don't think anyone else has done in British boxing, and in the city of Sheffield few have done anything like what Brendan Ingle did".
For listen to the full interview, or any other OTB content, check out our podcast page.
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