Steve Strong [00:00:31]:
Hi, my name's Steve Strong. I'm the head coach of Haydn District Amateur Boxing Club, formerly Luvalight, which the head coach was Ted Peat, my mentor in life. He's taught me everything I know, which I'm passing on to the children now. 

Sam Newton [00:00:46]:
My name's Sam Newton, boxing coach and judge. My inspiration as a coach was Bob Dylan, the head coach of Lions ABC. Just because of his pure desire for winning and he was great with me. I was working away from home at the time and his club felt like a family and a band of brothers. Always look forward to going training, always look forward to competing. There's a lot of pride and prestige pulling on that vest, especially with it having three Lions on it. But yeah, I absolutely love and adore Bob John Shakespeare and I'm trying to put it into a minute, mate, but I can't because I've got so much to say about Bob John and Kev. I love all of them and yeah, a big place in my heart.

Giuni Ligabue [00:01:35]:
Hi everyone, I am Giuni Ligabue. I'm at Coach in Pugilistic Navile, Bologna, Italy, and I'm responsible of the youth sector of my region, Emilia Romagna here in Italy. The coaches that inspired me more during my journey were Héctor Vinent Cháron, the great Cuban boxing star, then great Cuban boxing coach and also my friend from Brazil, Breno Macedo, that is one of the pioneers of the new amateur Brazilian, Brazilian amateur boxing era and is one of the person when I discuss more to develop my boxing coaching style.

Casey Nachman [00:02:10]:
So the coach I'm going to speak about isn't the first coach I had in boxing, but is the coach who coached me for the longest and would be the most influential in my boxing career. And then obviously by, by proxy, my life as I'm still heavily involved in boxing. His name is Rab Crockett and he was certainly a unique character. He was, of course, a boxer himself. He achieved numerous national titles and I believe a youth European title. That would have been in the 50s and 60s, when things were a lot tougher, of course, and I don't think titles like that would be easy to come by at all. 

His talent and commitment as a boxer translated over to his coaching, and he leaves a lasting legacy, having trained numerous Scottish national champions and even some good Scottish professionals as well. Sadly, I never reached the dizzy heights of being the national champion, but I came pretty close twice in a pretty short amount of time, and I believe if I trained longer under Rob's tutelage, I would have got there in the end. Rob was old school, and so was the gym that we trained in Denbeath ABC. It was never a busy gym. But those who boxed at Denbeath then and who continue to do so, always give a good account of themselves reaching really good standard of boxing. 

He taught skills mostly through pads and through sparring, so he'd usually take a normal training session. They usually take all of the carded boxes that were in the gym for about three to five rounds on pads, depending on what you had coming up, bouts and championships and things like that. Whilst he did that, everybody else did pad work or groundwork, and then once everybody had some pads, we would all spar. That could sometimes be a baptism of fire. Most weights sparred against each other, regardless of age, and sometimes all abilities kind of mixed up together as well. So it could possibly sometimes be a pretty hard night at the gym. But it meant you learned fast, that's for sure, or you didn't last. 

Rab, he was a local legend, really. Every single person in the surrounding towns knew who he was and could tell you a story or two about him. I've always felt a privilege to call him a dear friend. He gave me so much of his time to help me realize my dream of being a boxer, and I don't even think I particularly had a lot of talent. I was just there and wanted to do it, and that's what he was like. He gave anybody who wanted to try all the support that they needed. That's the kind of coach he was. He could see the strengths in anyone. 

Rab owned a pub, which was the first building on the only road in and out of town. If he wasn't in the gym, he was in his pub. And on the the warm afternoons and evenings, he would always sit at the front, sometimes with his punters. Almost every single car that drove past, every driver would beat their horn and wave at and shout some kind of playful greeting to him. Now, he didn't mind his P's and Q's himself. He could never really string a sentence together without at least, at least one swear word in it. So when he replied to the drivers, his reply would usually contain some sort of like, similar expletive as he called back to them. He was known for his colourful language, that's for sure. The town we lived in is called Buckhaven or Buck Hind as it's known by the locals. And the next village along is Denbeath, which is where the boxing club was. Rab's pub is actually called the Buck and Hind. And when he would always sit out there kind of monitoring the people inbound and outbound from the town, we used to call him the Duke of Denbeath or Buck Hind security guard. It was like he was watching over the town, making sure everyone coming and going was okay. That's the type of person he was. Sadly, Rob passed a few years ago after a short battle with cancer and he suffered with Alzheimer in his late years later years. But he leaves behind lots of family and lasting memories on an entire town. Rob was one of a kind.

Adam Haniver [00:06:33]:
So I hope you all liked Celebrating Coaches Part three. Thanks very much to Steve Strong, Sam Newton, Juni Ligabuy and Casey Nachman for their testimonies and celebrations of coaches that have inspired them over the years. Just as a side note, I had my very first bout as well, actually up in, in Scotland with Rab Crockett in the corner with Casey handing up. And yeah, I hugely echo what Casey says. One of the first things that struck me is when I first met him because he had to be there to corner me is I met him that day as we drove from, from Fife across to Glasgow and as we were about to get in the car, I went to get in the back and he said to me, no, you get in the front. You're the one doing the boxing. You have the comfy seats like that. And it was, it just struck me instantly as someone who was completely selfless. So thanks to everyone for sharing those and if anybody out there listening would like to celebrate some of the coaches that have inspired them in their journey and have been a big part of the reason for who they are and where they are today, please drop us a line and yeah, we'd love to have your homage, shall we say, and paying an ode to those coaches on the next instalment and Part four. Thanks everyone. Cheers.