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St Andrew's Sporting Club

By John Quinn

The St Andrew's Sporting Club was launched with the specific aim of providing a platform for young Scottish boxers to showcase their talents and prosper in their chosen profession. How well it has achieved that goal can be gauged by the fact that the club has, since its inception in 1973, staged more than 250 shows featuring Scottish, British, Commonwealth and European championships. Owner/Director Tommy Gilmour has even created history by promoting the first world championship contest in a private club, in the modern era, when Paul Weir beat South African Lindi Memani, in October 1993.

The club, which included among its early patrons the Earl of Rosebery and the Earl of Elgin, is now the premier organisation of its kind in the United Kingdom and arguably Europe. The inaugural show brought together Jim Watt of Glasgow and Ken Buchanan of Edinburgh to dispute Watt's British lightweight title. On 29 January 1973 Buchanan won that classic contest on points, but the younger Watt went on to emulate his victor and become World champion six years later.

Until the formation of the club, the boxing scene in a city famed for producing ring legends such as Benny Lynch (1913-1946), Jackie Paterson (1920-1966), Elky Clark and Peter Keenan, had been bleak. Such has been the success that since then Pat Clinton, Paul Weir and Scott Harrison, who have all boxed at the club, have all claimed world championships. Tommy Gilmour's proud claim is that every Scot to have won a major title in the last thirty years has boxed at the club.


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