Brian Anderson (British boxer)

Last updated

Brian Anderson
Statistics
Weight(s) Middleweight
Height6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
NationalityBritish
Born (1961-07-09) 9 July 1961 (age 58)
Sheffield, England
Boxing record
Total fights39
Wins27
Wins by KO14
Losses9
Draws3

Brian Anderson (born 9 July 1961) is a British former boxer who was British middleweight champion between 1986 and 1987. Since retiring from boxing he has worked for Her Majesty's Prison Service.

Boxing combat sport

Boxing is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring.

Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports.

Her Majestys Prison Service UK prison service

Her Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, which is the part of Her Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wales.

Contents

Early life

Born in Sheffield in 1961 to Jamaican-born parents, Anderson took up boxing after getting into trouble and being taken at the age of 13 by a social worker to the Croft House youth club, which had a boxing gym. [1] [2] At school he was taught PE by Howard Wilkinson and ran in the same cross-country running team as Sebastian Coe. [1] Realising he had a talent for boxing he focused his energies on the sport and represented England at amateur level four years later. [1] On a trip to Germany with the England team he met Brendan Ingle and later joined Ingle's St. Thomas's gym in Wincobank. [1]

Sheffield City and metropolitan borough in England

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. With some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base. The population of the City of Sheffield is 582,506 (mid-2018 est.) and it is one of the eight largest regional English cities that make up the Core Cities Group. Sheffield is the third-largest English district by population. The metropolitan population of Sheffield is 1,569,000.

Howard Wilkinson is an English former footballer and manager. Despite having a low-profile playing career, Wilkinson embarked on a successful managerial career. He won the First Division championship in 1992 with Leeds United, the final season before the creation of the Premier League. To date, he remains the last English manager to win the top-flight league in England. He later had two spells as caretaker manager of the English national team.

Sebastian Coe British athlete and politician

Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe,, often referred to as Seb Coe or Lord Coe, is a British politician and former track and field athlete. As a middle-distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984. He set eight outdoor and three indoor world records in middle-distance track events – including, in 1979, setting three world records in the space of 41 days – and the world record he set in the 800 metres in 1981 remained unbroken until 1997. Coe's rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.

Career

Boxing

Anderson began his professional career in 1980. His first chance to earn an opportunity to fight for the British Title was unsuccessful when he lost to Prince Rodney in a final eliminator for the British light middleweight title in March 1983; Rodney stopped Anderson in the fifth round. [3]

For a brief period Anderson moved up to middleweight beating Jimmy Ellis and in May 1983 to win the Central Area middleweight title. He made a successful defence of the title in May 1984 against Sammy Brennan.

In November 1984 he again dropped down to light middleweight to face Chris Pyatt in a final eliminator for the British title; Pyatt won on points.

Chris Pyatt English boxer

Chris Pyatt is a former world middleweight champion boxer from Leicester, England.

He made a second defence of his Central Area title in February 1986 against Steve Johnson. The fight was also a final eliminator for the British Middleweight Title. In October got his first shot at a British title when he faced Tony Burke for the vacant middleweight title. The title had been vacated by Anderson's friend and gym mate Herol Bomber Graham. Anderson stopped Burke in the eighth round to take the title. In September 1987 Anderson defended the British title against Tony Sibson at the Royal Albert Hall with Sibson's commonwealth title also at stake. Sibson stopped Anderson in the seventh round. [1] This proved to be Anderson's final fight. [1]

Tony Sibson is a former professional boxer.

Royal Albert Hall concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the United Kingdom's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is a registered charity held in trust for the nation, as it receives no public or government funding. It can seat 5,267.

Prison official

After retiring from boxing, Anderson became a referee and went on to train as a probation officer and study at Huddersfield Polytechnic, qualifying in 1988. [1] [4] He went on to work in the Prison Service as the country's first anti-bullying officer in 1994. He told reporter Alan Hubbard of UK newspaper The Independent , "The then chief inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbottom, seemed to like what we were doing. I told him I had always wanted to be some kind of social reformer and it was he who suggested that I should aim to become a prison governor. I found there was a graduate scheme and managed to get on it – the first black candidate to do so, in September 1997". [1]

Probation and Parole Officers play a role in the criminal justice systems by supervising offenders released from prison or sentenced to non-custodial sanctions such as community service. In some jurisdictions probation and parole officers are involved in presenting reports on offenders and making sentencing recommendation to courts of law.

<i>The Independent</i> British online daily newspaper

The Independent is a Russian-owned British newspaper that was established in 1986 as a politically independent national morning paper published in London. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only an online edition. It tends to take a pro-market stance on economic issues. Until September 2011, the paper described itself on the banner at the top of every newspaper as "free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence".

In 2006 Anderson became only the second black prison chief in the UK, taking charge of the Serco-run HM Prison Doncaster. [1] [2] [5] [6] Following his appointment he told the BBC, "I can say without a shadow of a doubt that boxing is responsible for me being here now. However, I was lucky, I joined a youth club where they had a boxing gym and I got involved in boxing. Instantly I found that it was something I could do, and do very well. It is quite ironic really, because when I was young people used to say 'you're going to end up in prison'. I don't think this is quite what they had in mind." [2] Expanding on this theme, Anderson told Alan Hubbard of UK newspaper The Independent , "When I went to Doncaster as a probation officer, I always remember at one point there were six inmates that I used to knock around with. There were a couple of them whose parents used to say 'don't mix with that Anderson because you'll get yourself into trouble'. It was ironic, there we were, all in prison together, but of course I was the one with the set of keys. I just think that in life I made better decisions than the people who are inside. I could quite easily not have done. God knows what I would have done if I hadn't found boxing." [1]

Anderson's job as governor resulted in a reunion with his former sparring partner Naseem Hamed who spent part of his 15 months sentence for dangerous driving at the jail in 2006, of which he said: "We knew for a long time before it happened that there was a high possibility that Nas was going to end up here. It wasn't a shock, it wasn't a surprise, it was just very sad". [2]

Anderson was appointed as director of Her Majesty's Prison and Young Offenders Institute Ashfield in 2009. Between 2009 and leaving in 2013 the institution underwent significant change and challenges including a 50% increase in prison population. Inspections found issues with increased use of restraint and high incidence of strip-searching, and identified fights among inmates as an issue, but also praised progress in education and training, care and management of looked-after children, family support, control of substance abuse and the quality of accommodation. [7] [8] The Ministry of Justice announced in early 2013 that Ashfield would be decommissioned as a Youth Offending Institution and re-roled as an adult-only prison. [9] Anderson left his role in March 2013, becoming director of HMP Lowdham Grange. [10]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hubbard, Alan (2006) "Boxing: Jailhouse Rocky: Ex-champion Anderson breaks new ground as first black prison chief", The Independent , 31 December 2006. Retrieved 16 March 2015
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Boxing champ takes helm at prison". BBC News. 4 January 2007. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  3. ↑ Thomson, Doug (2004) "Rodney's Return", Huddersfield Daily Examiner , 4 August 2004. Retrieved 16 March 2015
  4. ↑ "Brian Anderson, Doncaster Prison Archived 1 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine ", Ethos, August 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2015
  5. ↑ "First black prison governors speak on Respect anniversary", Warrington Guardian , 28 January 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2015
  6. ↑ Some sources state he was the first but he clarified in 2010 that Mike Poselay was the first.
  7. ↑ "Ashfield Young Offenders Institution restraint rates 'up nine-fold'". BBC News. 17 February 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  8. ↑ Hardwick, Nick (December 2011), Report on an unannounced short followup inspection of HMYOI Ashfield 11–13 October 2011 (PDF), London: Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, retrieved 7 August 2015
  9. ↑ "Justice Committee – Seventh Report", Parliament of the United Kingdom, 26 February 2013
  10. ↑ "In The Back: Prisons: Crime Pays". Private Eye (1398). 7 August 2015. p. 33.
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