Only a mere handful of Scottish athletes can lay legitimate claim to being one of the best ever in their field. It is indisputable that Benny Lynch is one of those select few. The boxer from the Gorbals was world flyweight champion in the 1930s and has since been described as Scotland’s greatest-ever boxer, with his achievements coming against all the odds having been born into the most extreme poverty. However, Lynch’s life was a tale of tragedy as well as monumental success with his death as a result of alcoholism coming in 1946 when he was just 33. It was a hugely sad conclusion but, despite his life being brought to an end so prematurely, Lynch’s legacy has lived on.
In the 71 years since his death, Lynch’s achievements have endured but until now, his story had never been fully documented. However, this has now been rectified, with a long-form documentary film of the Scot’s life premiering at the Glasgow Film Festival last night. “Benny” tells the story of Lynch’s life from his birth in 1913 through to his death just 33 years later and it features interviews with boxing experts, including fellow Glasgow world champion Jim Watt, as well as rarely-seen archive footage of Lynch, in and out of the ring.
For Seumas MacTaggart, one of the producers of “Benny”, it was about time that an in-depth film was made of Lynch’s life and it was fitting that the world premier took place in Lynch’s home city with the connection between the boxer and Glasgow still present all these years later. “For me, this is a Scottish story but it’s also a real Glasgow story,” says MacTaggart. “The grassroots feel about Benny Lynch is still so strong in Glasgow – it’s almost like folklore. As one of the characters in the film says, you go to any bar in Glasgow and someone will have a Benny Lynch story. His story has come down through the generations and ended up here and the way we’ve worked this documentary, it’s very much an analysis of that.”
Lynch took up boxing in his teens with his slight frame belying his power in the ring. He turned professional in 1931 with his greatest moment coming four years later when, in a single night, he became World, European and British flyweight champion when he defeated Englishman Jackie Brown in an astonishing fight in Manchester. Such a star was Lynch, thousands of Scots followed him to Manchester to witness him demolish Brown, who he floored ten times in the first two rounds alone. “The 1930s was a really hard time for people – economically it was very difficult yet there’s stories of thousands of people heading down to Manchester to watch Benny fight for the world title and that’s just phenomenal,” says MacTaggart. “There are even stories that some people walked down – whether that’s true of not who knows, but that’s all part of the legend.”
Lynch’s return to Glasgow after his victory over Brown was incredible. So sizeable were the crowds that amassed to meet him off the train, the entire area came to a standstill. This, believes MacTaggart, give a glimpse into the esteem in which Lynch was held by the Glasgow people. “What was really interesting about Benny was that sense of him being a real superstar,” the producer says. “When you see the archive footage, he looked like a film star. He seemed slightly uncomfortable with being treated like a star but he’d be smiling away and almost shyly acknowledging it. The key thing to remember though, is that in the 30s, boxing was absolutely massive, it was the sport that the people followed. If you think what football is like now, that’s what boxing was like back then. Benny was selling out stadiums and thousands of people would flock to Glasgow Green just to watch him train – that gives you a sense of what a hero he was.”
However, towards the end of Lynch’s life, alcohol took hold of him and he could not escape. Despite the fact that alcoholism ultimately brought about Lynch’s demise, MacTaggart is adamant that his life should not be defined entirely by this. “I think maybe Benny wasn’t fully recognised as a boxer because that was overshadowed in some ways by his issues but you’ve always got to remember that he was the first-ever Scottish world champion and that’s just stunning,” he says. “When Benny was in the ring, he was in control of what he was doing – that was his comfort-zone but it was a different ball-game when he was out of it. The thought that he wasted his potential is what’s so difficult about Benny’s whole story. He clearly had his own demons that he was dealing with and by the time of his last fight, he was a shadow of who he really was. I really think that in many ways, Benny’s a forgotten hero and we’re just trying to get his story out there as much as possible.”
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