Brian Packer

Brian Packer started boxing at the age of 11 and at the age of 20 was an Olympian and double ABA champion. Five years later his boxing career was over following an accident at work.

Packer was a former Chatham dockyard apprentice whose boxing career started at the Dartford Amateur Boxing Club. A southpaw bantamweight, he was told at the age of 17 he should never box again, unless he wanted to live with a permanently damaged hand. After several operations and a two-year wait, however, he was not only back in the ring, but was the ABA bantamweight champion.

Packer won the first of his back-to-back ABA titles in 1963, and shortly afterwards was selected for the England team to go to the European Amateur Championships at Moskva. After winning his second ABA title in 1964, Packer went to the Tokyo Olympics, but lost on a split decision to local favourite Takao Sakurai, who went on to win the gold medal. It was a decision that haunted Packer emotionally for much of his career.

After the Olympics, Packer turned professional and won 14 of 15 bouts, his only defeat being on a TKO after suffering a cut eye against South African Winston Van Guylenburg at the Shoreditch Town Hall. Due to a lack of quality bantamweights, Packer stepped up to featherweight to fight Glasgow’s Bobby Fisher in November 1968. That would turn out to be Packer’s last fight.

With an exciting future ahead of him, with fights against the Spanish European bantamweight champion Ben Ali and Mexico’s world number one, Ruben Olivares, scheduled, Packer’s world crumbled in December 1968. While working as a welder on the North Sea Gas pipeline he fell into a trench and did serious damage to his leg. Despite attempts to get back into the ring, the damaged leg prevented him from continuing with his boxing career.

Although he continued working as a welder, Packer had received substantial compensation following the accident but suffered with health issues including mental health issues and heart bypass surgery. In 2008, he was diagnosed with dementia.