Derry boxing greats Charlie Nash and John Duddy feature in new Irish boxing book

Two legends of Derry boxing, Charlie Nash and John Duddy feature in a recently published book on Irish boxing.

‘Fight of My Life’, written by journalist Owen Ryan, features interviews with 25 of Ireland's greatest boxing figures of the last 50 years. It is available to purchase on Amazon.

In it Charlie said that the highlight of his career was defeating the Scottish legend, Ken Buchanan. 

"I used my skill, my movement and speed, all the attributes that I had. It was great to beat somebody like Ken and I won on all three cards. It was just brilliant to beat him. 

"When I went back to the room in Copenhagen I cried my eyes out. Tommy took photos, different people took photos, if you'd seen me crying you'd probably think I'd lost!

"I had so much respect for the boxer that Ken Buchanan was that I couldn't stop crying for a long time."

Charlie also reflects on the loss of his brother Willie, one of the deceased on Bloody Sunday.

His father Alex was also shot on the day, while his mother was in hospital at the time with non-related health issues.

Describing events of the day, he said, "When I got in there was a conversation, I was asking what was happening, my sister said 'Charlie, we don't know, but we've been told Willie was one of the people that was shot'. 

"I spoke to neighbours over the street and said can you tell me what happened. They said your father was shot and we're fairly sure your brother was shot. 

"I got a lift over to the hospital. The first place I went to was up to my Da, but I didn't get into see him because he had been shot. Then I went to my mother, but she was bad and I didn't say anything to her about Willie. Then I got somebody to take me down to the morgue.

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"I was taken in and was shown the bodies by a policeman. They were all lying on the floor in a circle, with a sheet over each body. I lifted up the sheet to see was it Willie, it wasn't; lifted the next one, it wasn't Willie, lifted up the next one, it wasn't Willie. 

"I think I lifted up seven sheets and the seventh person that was under a sheet was my brother Willie, and he was as dead as a mackerel."

He said his family played an important role in making sure he didn't go looking for retribution, and instead he put his energy into his boxing career and raising his family. 

"Our family and the other families, we've never forgotten it, but we couldn't do anything about it. The only thing you could do was join the IRA and the IRA was strong then. 

Charlie Nash

"I was a sports person and when my Da came out of hospital he talked to me and talked to me; my brothers and sisters talked to me too, because that's what could have happened, I could have joined the IRA and stuff like that. But for me it was all sport and family, sport and family."

He said that all of Willie's vast potential was cruelly destroyed on that awful day. 

"Willie was as good as I was as an amateur boxer. I'd love to have seen what would have happened with the rest of his career if he hadn't been shot on Bloody Sunday.

He was a hard worker too, always wanted to work, always had a job to do.

He'd have made a good life for himself."

Duddy

In the book John Duddy said his most memorable fight was defeating Howard Eastman in Belfast in 2007.

"It was a great experience for me, to do it at home, to be filling out the King's Hall. I loved it," he says.

Duddy also reflects on the loss of hunger that led to his sudden retirement, right when he was on the brink of the biggest pay day of his career.

"I was still training and stuff like that, but all of a sudden it was a chore, it was hard. And this had been my dream, I loved doing it. 

I'm trying to train for fighting Andy Lee and I'm empty. No anger, no drive, no nerves. I was chatting with Harry (his trainer Harry Keitt) a lot. He'd say to me are you alright? I said nah. He said do you think you don't have it? I said, nah, I know it, I'm done, I've been done for a while. 

I remember the last fight I had in the Garden, I think I knocked the guy out in the first round. My reaction was just to put my hand up, the place was going bananas, but I was just like 'ah, thanks, can I go home?' 

"My heart was gone from it completely."

He had been falling out of love with the sport for some time, he says. "Giving it up was still hard, because I didn't know anything else. But I was thinking about it for about five or six fights. The question had never been in my mind before, what else can I do? I've got to do something else. 

I used to love sparring, love training with people, and then I ended up hurting the kids, golden gloves fighters and people like that. All of a sudden I was getting angry, turning into someone I didn't like. 

John Duddy

Everyone thinks that the worst thing I could have done if I fought Andy Lee was to get beat. In my mind the worst thing that could have happened would be that I'd have won, because then I would have had to go again."

While he did become disenchanted, he says he had a lot of great times in boxing. " I am very lucky because I've got a lot of good memories. I'm working in this gym now (in New York) and people always come in to chat, people from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, even people from France and Spain. You can see them looking at a picture on the wall and they look at that, look at me and then 'oh, we know you!" 

*Fight of My Life is written by Owen Ryan and is published by Hero Books. It is available solely on Amazon. 

As well as the two Derry men, some of the others included are world champions Barry McGuigan, Wayne McCullough, Dave Boy McCauley and Deirdre Gogarty. Also there are Olympic medallists Michael Carruth, Kenneth Egan, Paddy Barnes and Aidan Walsh.