john burrowes

'Before Benny, nobody from the Gorbals became World Champion of anything...'

Benny Lynch was Scotland's first World Boxing Champion and the most talked-about British sportsman of his generation. In fact, many consider him to be the finest fighter the country has ever produced.

Benny is the amazing account of how Lynch battled his way above and beyond the 'fifty-shilling men' of his home town of Glasgow to become the champion of Scotland, Britain, Europe and the world, earning a reputation as one of the greatest pugilists of all time. But this absorbing biography also details how his career sadly came to a premature halt because of Lynch's alcoholism, which destroyed his health and led to him being abandoned by his countless followers. It took his tragic death at the age of only 33 to restore the fallen idol to legendary status again.

The gritty reality of the daily grind of life in the Depression-era Gorbals is captured vividly in this remarkable story of the rise and tragic fall of a fighting legend.