Small Heath stars at Pat’s birthday bash

What a line-up…the old boys pay tribute to a Birmingham legend

LOOK at this for a line-up of Birmingham boxing legends.

They gathered on Sunday to honour a man who has built champion after champion. Pat Benson was the driving force behind Small Heath boxing club, which simply churned out national titleholders from schoolboys to seniors, year in year out.

The names are now part of Second City fight folklore: Matt Macklin, the Ramsey brothers, Wayne Elcock, Rowan Williams, Frankie Gavin…

Fellow legend Frank O’Sullivan, of Birmingham City ABC, was also there.

Around 50 attended the Irish Centre to celebrate Pat’s 89th birthday, the afternoon organised by former Small Heath champ Shaun Cogan who went on to enjoy success as a pro and is now a respected trainer.

Amazingly, it took Shaun only a week to ring round and pull-off the party.

Shaun Cogan with Pat Benson at Sunday’s tribute

Shaun said: “It was great, everyone was buzzing, a great time seeing so many old faces. Every year Small Heath produced champions and that’s incredible, really, when you think it had no funding, just Pat running round asking for a quid for training. I don’t think many of us paid.

“We owe Pat so much. We said, without him half of us would probably have ended up in prison because we were some tearaways!”

Our picture shows: Cianan Folan, Jake Mulpete, Connor Benson, Dario Genockey, Paul McColgan, Kealan McColgan, Darren Sweeney, Des Mooney, Wayne Elcock, Paul Ramsey, Mark Ramsey Trevor Gordon, Rocky Amoo, Paul Sheppard, Dennes Brown, Paddy Benson, Calum Kennedy, James Barrett, Rowan Williams, Matthew Macklin, Ozzie Sattar, Dave Harkin, Carl McGreevy, Shaun Cogan, Pat Benson Snr, Brian Conti, Frank O’Sullivan, Anthony Maynard, Gus Sperin, Mama Sperin, Gary Cogan, Pete Sperin, Ahmer Sattar, Rehan Yunis, Bradley Savage, Peter Ryan, Paddy Cahill, Trevor Gordon.