Book description
'Before Benny, nobody from the Gorbals became World Champion of anything...'
Benny Lynch was Scotland's first World Boxing Champion and the most
talked-about British sportsman of his generation. In fact, many
consider him to be the finest fighter the country has ever produced.
Benny is the amazing account of how Lynch battled his way
above and beyond the 'fifty-shilling men' of his home town of Glasgow
to become the champion of Scotland, Britain, Europe and the world,
earning a reputation as one of the greatest pugilists of all time. But
this absorbing biography also details how his career sadly came to a
premature halt because of Lynch's alcoholism, which destroyed his
health and led to him being abandoned by his countless followers. It
took his tragic death at the age of only 33 to restore the fallen idol
to legendary status again.
The gritty reality of the daily grind of life in the Depression-era
Gorbals is captured vividly in this remarkable story of the rise and
tragic fall of a fighting legend.
John Burrowes is a journalist and the author of several books,
including
Great Glasgow Stories
,
Great Glasgow Stories II, Glasgow: Tales of the City
and
Irish
. It was his research for
Benny
that gave him the inspiration for his
Jamesie's People
trilogy, which detailed life in the Gorbals from the 1930s to the '70s.
