Dave Charnley

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Statistics
Dave Charnley
Real name	David F. Charnley
Nickname	The Dartford Destroyer
Weight	Lightweight
Nationality	English
Birth date	October 10, 1935
Birth place	Dartford, England
Style	Southpaw
Boxing record
Total fights	61
Wins	48
Wins by KO	27
Losses	12
Draws	1
No contests	0

Dave Charnley (born October 10, 1935 in Dartford, England) was an English lightweight boxer and is considered to be one of the greatest British fighters in his weight class.^[1]

Known as The Dartford Destroyer the left-handed Charnley had a career lasting from 1954 to 1964.

He won bronze in the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada and went on to become:

British Lightweight Boxing Champion (1957-63),
Commonwealth Lightweight Boxing Champion (1959-62) and
European Lightweight Boxing Champion (1960-61).

1 World Champion Title Fights
2 Aggressive Fighting Style
3 After the Ring
4 Sources
5 References
6 External links

[edit] World Champion Title Fights

Charnley made two unsuccessful world title challenges against his arch-rival Joe 'Old Bones' Brown. He was stopped by Brown on a cut eye in Houston, Texas, in 1959 and was narrowly out-pointed in a controversial 15 round bout in London on 18 April 1961. Ring Magazine called this second bout "Fight of the Year." Many say Charnley should have won. [1] The decision is still contested by Charnley and most British writers.

Charnley eventually defeated Brown in six rounds in a non-title fight in Manchester on 25 February 1963.

[edit] Aggressive Fighting Style

Before he became a boxer, Charnley worked at Vickers Engineering Crayford as a boilermaker, which may help explain his powerful build. He had large forearms and was often compared to the "Toy Bulldog" Mickey Walker.

Charnley, however, also had good tools. He had double and triple hooks and was a true scrapper with plenty of bottle. His trademark was an aggressive attacking style. Inside the ring he was a furious brawler who gave and took brutal punishment. He fought everyone, even much heavier men and held his own.

Only Joe Brown stopped him on cuts and until his last fight, only welterweight great Emile Griffiths stopped him from going the distance. Charnley ended his career fighting welterweights and was a real tough opponent for anyone.

[edit] After the Ring

When he retired from boxing, Charnley took a completely different direction in his life and opened and operated hair salons, which became quite profitable for him.

[edit] Sources

Henry Cooper’s 100 Greatest Boxers (Henry Cooper, Queen Anne Press, 1990) page 32
The Ring Record Book & Boxing Encyclopaedia 1959 (Nat Fleischer, The Ring Book Shop Inc., 1959) page 5