Terry Milligan

Terry Milligan was widely regarded as the finest amateur boxer to ever wear the green vest of Ireland. He won over 200 bouts in his 15-year career, including 11 Irish and Ulster titles between 1948-58. Milligan started boxing as a 13-year-old after joining the St. John Bosco Boxing Club and won the 1946 Ulster junior flyweight title. He made his senior début with a win over J. Bolger in the Inter-county match between Ulster and Dublin in 1948, and in 1950 Milligan represented Ireland for the first time, in the international match against France.

A bronze medallist at the 1951 European Amateur Championships, Milligan won silver four years later at Warszawa (Warsaw) when he lost on points to Poland’s Lech Drogosz. In the quarter-final of the light-welterweight competition at the 1952 Olympics, despite his superior ringcraft, Milligan lost to the aggressive attacking boxing of the 19-year-old Italian European champion Bruno Visintin.

Milligan’s finest moment came at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Cardiff when he beat South Africa’s Philippus du Plessis in a gruelling middleweight final. After his victory, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh went to Milligan’s dressing room to congratulate him on becoming the first Northern Ireland boxer to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal. Milligan announced his retirement from boxing shortly after these Games.