“All Round Contribution“
Bert Gilroy the Scots-Italian middleweight, real name Antonio Rhea.
Born of Italian parentage as Antonio Rea on May 10, 1918, Bert Gilroy was quite simply one of the very best Scottish boxers at middleweight and lighteavyweight that Scotland has ever produced who certainly deserves to be up beside Craigneuk pair, Tommy Milligan and Chic Calderwood as the best Caledonian boxers at their weight.
Bert Gilroy was also one of the gamest boxers ever to enter a boxing ring given that he was only five feet eight and a half inches tall and weighed around 12 stones 7lbs yet he was still willing to challenge a peak form British heavyweight champion like Bruce Woodcock-not just once but twice.
Born in Airdrie in 1915 (a town which had already produced doughty ring men like heavyweight, Dan McGoldrick, who fought 1935 “Oscar” winner, Victor McLaglen and bantamweight Alex Lafferty who was the toast of New York between 1912-14 before being killed in 1918 in the First World War) Bert came steeped in boxing with brother Ernie becoming a successful local boxing Scotland in western Scotland.
Equally Bert Gilroy’s youth coincided with the great economic depression of the 1930′s when unemployment and hardship were par for the course in the coal and steel hinterlands of his native Lanarkshire so little wonder that despite being barely out of short trousers aged 15 Bert had his first ever pro bout, in September 1933 when he outpointed one Mick Cassidy over 6 rounds in Airdrie. Another notable scalp in this early stages of his paid ring career was in 1934 when Bert outpointed Joe Gans, father of future British and W.B.C. Flyweight champion, Walter McGowan. It should also be noted that Joe Gans would take world rated featherweight from Bathgate, Joe Connolly, the distance over 12 rounds just two years later so Bert Gilroy’s six round points victory over Gans at such an early juncture of the Gilroy ring career shows the level of early potential that the young Scots-Italian had.
Again, the Gilroy ring trademarks of ring style and punchpower soon brought dividends. For example, in 1938 Bert became the Scottish middleweight champion by outpointing tough, game, Tommy Smith in Glasgow at a time when, given the sheer abundance of good boxers in those depressed times winning an Area title like the Scottish was at least as difficult as winning a modern ”world” title belt awarded by today’s alphabet soup boys.
Similarly, in his first ever defence of his Scottish middleweight crown, in Glasgow in June 1939, Bert’s management didn’t pick any patsy for champ Gilroy’s fellow Coatrbridge townsman, Johnny Clements had built up a fearsome reputation for the ferocity of his ring style. However, Clement’s ferocity on this occasion extended to ignoring the Queensberry rule book and challenger Clements was disqualified in round 13.
If Bert’s win over Clements wasn’t his most satisfying victory the same couldn’t be said for his win (in a British title eliminator against Nowrich’s Arthur ”Ginger’ Saad in Newcastle on May 6 1940) Gilroy having previously intimated his own class by drawing with Saad in 1939 over 10 rounds. This was the same Ginger Saad who would give future world lightheavyweight, champion from Bournemouth, Freddie Mills plenty to think about when the pair clashed. Victory over Saad in this 10 round eliminator should have propelled Bert into fighting another ring warrior noted for his uncomprimising ferocity (“The Rochdale Thunderbolt”) Jock McAvoy, for McAvoy’s British title and Lonsdale Belt but fate proved (as ever) a fickle promoter.
Although able to avoid the general round up of Scots-Italians made in 1940 when they were interned in the Isle of Man after Mussolini declared war on Great Britain in June 1940 by joning the British Army, Bert found this move a distinctly mixed “blessing”. For while a serving soldier Bert Gilroy sustained a serious back injury. An injury so bad that Army doctors in the Military Hospital where Gilroy was sent told him confidently that he would never box again.
However, these Army medics reckoned without the Gilroy grit and fighting spirit, for by 1942 Bert was not only back in full ring action in places as far apart as Derby, Glasgow and Dublin but beating top men like Welshman Glen Moody whom Bert stopped in seven; Ginger Saad-outpointed in 10 in Glasgow and Jack Hyams with whom Bert drew over 10 rounds. Not bad form for a guy supposed to be crippled by a bad back!
True there was the odd set-back such as Bert’s disqualification against England’s Dave McLeave (whom Bellshill’s Jake Kilrain had stopped back in 1936) in February 1943 at the London Casino, but that was Bert’s only loss in 1943 when due to the war, rationing, travel and air raid restrictions, just getting in to the ring was often the easiest part of a boxer’s life.
1944 was the year of D-Day for the western allies against the Nazis but it was also a red letter year for Bert Gilroy for he marked that year by fighting Freddie Mills in February at he London Casino. Although the Coatbridge man lost by an 8th round stoppage Mills himself subsequently testified of his clash with Bert “Bert proved to be a very game and clever opponent, although, after opening his eye in the first round, I put him down for a count of nine. He came back full of heart and try as I might, I could not put him away, he was just too clever…”
Praise indeed, for it should always be borne in mind that when he fought future world champion Mills Bert Gilroy was more used to victory than defeat. In this connection, by the end of 1944 Bert had fought 93 contests of which he had lost only 18 against 67 victories. Little wonder that Freddie Mills summed up his 1944 scrap with Gilroy thus “It was Bert who got the larger share of the applause in the London Casino and well merited it…style, gameness, punch,-Bert had them all…”
As indeed Gilroy’s fellow Scot, Jock McCusker, was to find out on March 15 1945 in Glasgow when Bert outpointed McCusker over 15 rounds for the vacant Scottish lightheavyweight title.
However, a following loss to Dundonian Ken Shaw for the latter’s Scottish heavyweight title in 15 rounds while showing admirable guts, came as standard with the Coatbridge Scots-Italian highlighting that fighting heavyweights was a step too far for Bert, an opinion reinforced when the ever gutsy Gilroy agreed to fight, world rated Yorkshire heavyweight, Bruce Woodcock who had previously knocked Gilroy out at Leicester in five rounds in 1944. Once again it proved a step too far for Bert and he was stopped inside two rounds at Manchester on April 8 1946.
Follow up wins over tough Fijian, Ben Valentine, showed that Gilroy was still a formidable operator within his own weight range, so his matching with rising world rated middleweight Marcel Cerdan (who would become the world middleweight champion in 1948)looked good on paper in February 1947 at Marlybone, London.
Given that Cerdan was just a year away from dethroning legendary tough guy and American world champion, Tony Zale, for the world middleweight title it was no suprise really that Cerdan knocked Gilroy out in four rounds. Yet the sad truth is that even had Bert Gilroy beaten Cerdan he would not and could not have obtained a world title shot as a replacement for Cerdan – why?
Because organised crime in the USA controlled world titles at weights like middleweight in the 1940′s (that’s why Jake LaMotta got the title shot with Cerdan in 1949) but only after going in the tank with Billy Fox in a fixed fight. Would Bert Gilroy and his manager, Tommy Gilmour senior have made such an accomodation with the American mob who owned the world middleweight title as LaMotta did? Absolutely not!
Again, claims made in some quarters that Bert Gilroy never received a world title shot during World War Two because of some London based plot to freeze him out are fantasy.
Between 1941-45 the world middleweight and lightheavyweight crowns for which Bert may have challenged in peacetime were frozen for the duration of the war as middleweight champion Tony Zale joined the Navy and lightheavyweight champion, Gus Lesnevich joined the Coastguard so there was never the slightest chance of ANY boxer (irrespective of nationality) challenging for both these titles between 1941-45.
But, that said, maybe this is what world class boxing referee from Edinburgh, Eugene Henderson meant when he opined in his 1959 published autibiography, “Box On” that “But for the Second Word War Bert Gilroy could have won a world title…” and celebrated ring third man, Henderson added in the same book.. “Bert Gilroy, the Coatbridge stylist was the unluckiest champion that ever was…just approaching his peak in 1939 he never recaptured it once he went into the services….”
Similarly, the charge that Bert Gilroy was frozen out of British title contention does not hold water, witness his nomination for a British title eliminator for Jock McAvoy’s British crown that only did not happen because of Bert’s unfortunate Army back injury.
“On the other hand the now defunct British boxing magazine “Gladiator” in 1950 (17 years after he had turned pro) had Bert Gilroy as a third place leading contender for Freddie Mills title. While the 1949 Jack Solomons boxing annual rated Bert Gilroy number two next to champion Mills at lightheavyweight so there is absolutely no question tht Bert Gilroy was a world class boxer fully deserving his place in the American and Scots Boxing Halls of Fame.
Had Bert lived and boxed today he would have won a clutch of titles from British to world level.
I met Bert Gilroy in 1993 after being introduced to him by former British bantamweight champion, Peter Keenan. The fact that Bert was realtively unmarked and highly articulate and intelligent after trading leather with big punchers like Bruce Woodcock was the best testimony to Bert’s abilities to avoid heavy punishment due to his considerable boxing abilities.
