Ringside Report Looks Back at Boxer Dave Odwell

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Non Viscara…Non Gloria’ (No Guts…No Glory)

Olympic Gold medalists.

World Champions.

Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) Champions.

Maurice Hope, Audley Harrison, John H Stracey, Sylvester Mitte, Mickey Carter, Gary Barker, Billy Taylor, Graham Moughton, Tony Cesay.
Dave Odwell

Recognized as Britain’s oldest boxing club, used extensively for film and television productions – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells, a notable example – it resides in a former Victorian Bathhouse in Bethnal Green, London. Established in 1884, connected to Repton School until the 1970’s, it also had notorious gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray trained there, but in the history of British Amateur Boxing, there is no other club like Repton Boxing Club.

Dave Odwell, along with his brother, Gary, were notable products from the tough environment in which they fought and clawed their way through the sport. They embodied the motto of the club – No Guts, No Glory.

Whilst Gary remained with the club and went into training, Dave was last reported in Spain, with a bar frequented by some ex-pats locally, being apparently run by him in his retirement.

I was drawn to Odwell partly because of the passing of another 1970’s sporting idol, David Wilkie. A Scottish swimmer with a curious transatlantic accent – he studied in the US for four years but seemed to have absorbed most of the vocal culture – Wilkie was the Scottish swimmer who made his breakthrough in the 1972 Olympics in Munich with a silver medal, then, in 1976 went to the next Olympics and won gold. In 1976 he was a teammate of Odwell’s, for Odwell was our middleweight representative in Montreal for the British boxing team.

Born in Hackney, London, in 1952, Odwell stayed local and was the 1974 and the 1975 ABA champion at middleweight. At the time selection could be rather odd with selectors open to the accusation of often making choices less on the basis of who you knew rather than what you did. But Dave was the product of a local dynasty. His dad fought over 300 times with over 100 knockouts. His brother was a trainer who was also based at the Repton, and who too recently passed away. His legacy was cemented from outside the ring whilst brother Dave was the pugilist with the accolades on the mantelpiece.

There is an interview with Dave on the Repton website with simple questions and answers which shine a bit of light into the journey that Dave went on. Aside from acknowledging that boxing was indeed a family tradition, Dave goes on to recognize that boxing gave him, as it does for many young people, “self-discipline, humility and respect for others.”

His amateur career was the only boxing career that interested Dave and with around 120 contests as an amateur – he cannot be precise about how many fights he had! – it’s clear his dedication. He managed to make it to fight at the Royal Albert Hall but describes his toughest opponent as “… some nutcase called Steadman at the ABA quarter finals, Hull. He Just loved having a scrap!” Of the best fighters of the past, he names Sugar Ray Robinson – “no brainer, all due respect to everyone’s opinion, Sugar Ray Robinson. Just watch some old videos!” – whilst of the day in which he was interviewed it was Floyd Mayweather – “probably”.

At the 1976 Olympics Odwell boxed twice. After a clear 5-0 win against the Moroccan, Mohamed Saoud he lost by the same margin to Yugoslavia’s Dragomir Vujković.

Perhaps the greatest honor for Dave was the fact that whilst he was at Montreal, he was the British Team captain. It might not eclipse the 1974 and 1975 Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) middleweight championships but as a fighter and a sportsman he left an indelible impression we should never forget.

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