John McDermott MBE “Outstanding Contribution”
Born in the Coatbridge area of Whifflets on March 24 1938, John McDermott came into the world with boxing class written all over his genetic heritage. On John’s mother’s side he was related to 1930′s Bathgate featherweight star, Joe Connolly, who not only represented Scotland in the 1934 London based Empire Games but had his life saved in the Wembley swimming pool by Leith heavyweight and Scottish team mate Alex Bell. But in the boxing ring it was usually Joe Connolly’s opponents who needed saving as world rated Connolly gave American southpaw world featherweight great from Cincinnati a hard fight in the 1930′s. Similarly, another of McDermott’s Uncles, Harthill lightweight, Alex McLeish, was a noted boxer in the 1930′s.
But class wasn’t just in John McDermott’s genes for when John had to earn his daily bread as a toolmaker he worked with the Rolls Royce company in Glasgow and they, in turn, showed that their corporate class went beyond engines and automobiles by giving McDermott five weeks paid leave to train and compete in the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia, where John won the featherweight boxing gold medal.
However, the McDermott boxing career really started years before these 1962 events once young John settled with his family in the Lanarkshire hamlet of Flemington in the 1940′s, a sporting hotbed where his neighbours included future British featherweight champion Charlie Hill and 1965 Celtic Scottish Cup wining team goalie, John Fallon. After starting to box for Cambuslang Miners Club as an amateur aged 11, John came under the boxing influence of the eight years older Charlie Hill and soon emulated the latter by winning Western district and Scottish titles at fly and bantamweight becoming Scottish champion in 1954. A move to the National Club in Bridgeton where mentor Charlie Hill’s manager, Tommy Gilmour senior held court, enhanced both McDermott’s ring knowledge and career progress but on obtaining an apprenticeship with the N.B. Loco firm in Glasgow whose N.B. Loco boxing club was legendary for its achievements under coaches like 1930′s vintage ex-British featherweight champion Johnny McGrory; Billy Innes and Tommy Tucker. McDermott switched allegiance to the Springburn based club.
A fruitful union of past and future featherweight ring stars that saw McDermott win a clutch of amateur titles and box internationally for Scotland where, at both club and international level, he became renowned for his boxing skills and tactical shrewdness inside the ropes. Even National Service for two years couldn’t divorce John McDermott from outstanding ring achievements. Boxing for the Royal Scots regiment in both Berlin and Libya saw McDermott win a BAOR title in Germany and a Middle Eastern championship crown in Libya in 1959. On demob from military service in 1961 John resumed his amateur career at featherweight, cutting a swathe through British Scottish and foreign 9 stone boxers until all that stood between McDermott and a place at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia, was a behind closed doors box-off in a Possilpark, Glasgow, garage with Tarboltion, Ayrshire’s formidable Evan Armstrong, a future British and Commonwealth pro featherweight champion. After beating Armstrong in that box-off it was off to Perth, Australia and Commonwealth games gold medal glory after eliminating an Australian in the semi-finals and Kenyan Ali Jumba in the final.
Ironically, McDermott was going to turn down the box-off for the 1962 games to join the professional ranks but boxing promoter Tommy Gilmour senior advised him to take the chance of a trip of a lifetime and go to Perth and postpone becoming a paid boxer. On return to Glasgow after a proud reunion with his family and wife, Agnes, John signed up as a pro boxer with London based manager Sam Burns who had guided Terry Downes to a world middleweight title among others.
However, John himself admits that his pro career was sabotaged by his tendency to cut too easily but his time as a professional fighter had its compensations, rubbing shoulders with and appearing on the same Paisley fight card as the great American world champion, ”Sugar” Ray Robinson in September 1964.
McDermott also spared extensively with fly and bantamweight great Walter McGowan, an experience that made John claim- even today- that Hamilton stylist McGowan was Scotland’s greatest ever technical boxer. But the theme of walking in the shadow of greatness that had been and remained a part of his life did not end when McDermott became a coach and boxing trainer whose work spanned both the amateur and professional boxing worlds. For example, It was McDermott who coached Scotland’s last Jewish boxing champion, British and European lightweight titlist, Gary Jacobs for his first 21 paid bouts; when Croy’s Pat Clinton won the WBO world flyweight title in 1992 in Glasgow it was John McDermott who coached him; when Glasgow super featherweight, Craig Docherty, won the Commonwealth crown it was with McDermott in his corner just as he seconded Lanarkshire’s Joe Townsley in his title bid against England’s Adrian Stone. In the amateurs it was and is, the same triumphal story with McDermott’ Blantyre club boxers wining honours at every level.
What makes this litany of achievement all the more impressive is that John McDermott, even after receiving an M.B.E. for services to boxing from Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace in 2004, remained the most modest and personable of men-outspoken in defence of any perceived wrongs to his boxers-but otherwise a most pleasant and much respected individual. A man who still carries these qualities with him whether he is seconding one of Tommy Gilmour junior’s professional boxers at the St. Andrew’s Sporting Club or trying to inspire a 13 year old novice in an amateur boxing show. John McDermott M.B.E.’s induction into the Scots Hall of Boxing Fame is as merited as it will be welcomed by all who cherish class in individuals at both boxing and personal level within Caledonian boxing.
Written by Brian Donald.
