Joey 'The Jab' Singleton was born on the 2nd of June 1951 in Kirkby, Merseyside and was nicknamed 'The Jab' due to his fast hands and use of his very accurate left jab and overhand right. A very good amateur, as most pros had been at that time, he boxed for Kirkby BC. He won a full set of titles as a talented amateur fighter, including National Schools, Junior ABA and then senior ABA crown in 1971. That year, three boxers from Kirkby BC club boxed in the finals, for as well as Joey and John Conteh, Tony Byrne competed at middleweight, losing out to a young Alan Minter. Joey represented Britain a dozen times, winning gold medals at two multi-national tournaments before turning professional in 1973 under revered fight guru Charlie Atkinson, the leading manager in Liverpool at the time who had big plans for Liverpool Stadium, a venue that had not hosted a professional boxing tournament for nearly five years. On the 5th of May 1973 Charlie Atkinson ran his first show at the Stadium and Joey was particularly impressive in winning virtually every round against Jess Harper to win the vacant British Boxing Board of Control Central Area Light-Welterweight title making Joey the first man to win the Lonsdale belt outright at light-welterweight in only his third professional contest. Now known as a super-lightweight, this division was packed with talent during the 1970s after it had been revived in 1973. Then in 1974 he featured in two important contests. He knocked out Jim Melrose at the Liverpool Stadium in only two rounds to win a British light-welterweight title eliminator and then, at the same venue 11 weeks later, he outpointed Pat McCormack to become the new light-welterweight British champion.
The following year two more victories earned him the belt outright. He had looked out of sorts when beating Peckham's Alan Salter in a non-title 10-rounder at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1975 but, when the pair met again for the title in October, Joey really turned it on, hammering the Londoner in nine rounds in a convincing display. Six weeks later, Joey made the belt his own by winning a 15-round decision over Des Morrison, a former champion at the weight, at Belle Vue, Manchester. Unfortunately for Joey, an up-and-coming lad from the Fens was making a name for himself and, when Dave Boy Green met Joey for the title on the 1st of June 1976, the Royal Albert Hall crowd saw the birth of a new star when Joey was slowly dismantled by the 'Fen Tiger' but was brave in defeat, going out like a champion. His career never quite hit the heights after that as he lost three British title eliminators, against Charlie Nash, Des Morrison and Kirkland Lang. He continued to box up and down the country in good quality eight-rounders against the likes of George Turpin, Colin Powers, Tommy Glencross, George McGurk and Terry Petersen. Having moved up to welterweight, on the 4th of February 1980 he beat Terry Peterson on points to claim the Boxing Board of Control Central Area welterweight title before losing to the Dane, Jorgen Hansen, in a contest for the European welterweight title. However, on the 26th of October 1980 he successfully defended his Central Area welterweight title by beating Lee Hartshorn on points.
Joey was a fine example of the sort of fighter who abounded in the 1970s and early 1980s, and when he packed it in, in 1982 ,it was with a record of 27 wins from 40 hard-fought contests. All in all he had 156 fights, winning 140, drawing two and losing just 14 and deserves to be remembered as one of Liverpool's finest.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2026/10/merseyside-for-sport-mick-lyons.html
No comments:
Post a Comment