ABOUT THIS BOOK
PUBLISHER: Random House (Digital)
FORMAT: Electronic book text
ISBN: 9781780573472
RRP: £8.34
PAGES: 224
PUBLICATION DATE:
October 14, 2011
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Benny: The Life and Times of a Fighting Legend
John Burrowes
‘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
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.