Never Forget Phil Martin

Tributes to a very special boxing man are heard by Terry Dooley in Manchester.

- Terry Dooley

EYEBROWS were raised in 1982 when former lightheavyweight Phil Martin took over a derelict building and turned it into a rough-and-ready boxing gym. Martin named it Champs Camp and it rose like a phoenix from the streets of riot-hit Moss Side. Two days of strife in July 1981 had set the area on a path of nationwide notoriety that it would struggle to shake off decades later.

For Martin, though, the area was his manor and the gym was his home. By 1993 it housed four British champions in Carl Thompson (cruiserweight), Frank Grant (middleweight), Maurice Core (light-heavyweight) and Paul Burke (lightweight).

Despite Martin’s death from cancer in May 1994, the community leader’s legacy has continued through the work of former protégés such as Billy Graham, Joe Gallagher, Oliver Harrison and current Champs Camp custodian Maurice Core, as well as many others.

The latest to strike out on his own is Haroon Headley, who operates the Heavy Hitters Gym in Manchester. His show at the Hilton on September 21 was part of a two-part tournament as well as doubling up as a tribute to his former mentor.

“We made it a bit like a little version of the World Boxing Super Series,” he told Boxing News. “We scaled it down, created a trophy in the memory of Phil and put it on. We’ve now got two cracking finals on December 21 with Diego Costa-Boris Crighton and John Telford-Kyle Lomotey.”