Tony Byrne “Sock it to him Anthony!”

[from the Appletree Press title Legends of Irish Boxing published by Appletree Press]

On 6th December 2006, the Co. Louth town of Drogheda honoured one of its most famous sons. Tony ‘Socks’ Byrne, a bronze medallist for Ireland at the Melbourne Olympics, returned home from Edmonton in Canada to witness the unveiling of a statue dedicated to his name.
      For Drogheda, it was a case of déjà vu as it had again delved deep in its pockets to honour the man who put the town’s name on the Olympic map. The campaign to have the statue erected was a carbon copy of the one which had raised the finance to send Tony Byrne to Melbourne in 1956. Back then, a sum of £653 was secured by the ‘Send Byrne to Melbourne’ campaign – an unbelievable figure which was sufficient to finance many athletes in those days.
      In 2006, a sum of almost e30,000 was raised to finance the statue which stands proudly by the town’s Scotch Hall. A fitting and permanent tribute from the people who remain dear to the heart of Tony ‘Socks’ Byrne.
      Born in Hardman’s Gardens, Drogheda, on 7th June 1930, Anthony Byrne joined the local Tredagh Boxing Club in the town at the age of twelve. Under the watchful eyes of Ray Everitt and Jimmy Carroll, Byrne learned his ring craft. On leaving school at fifteen to take up employment, he soon found that his job as a message boy interfered with his ability to train so he left boxing for a period of three years.
      At eighteen, Byrne joined the Irish Army and was afforded an opportunity to resume his boxing career. In a period of six months, ‘Socks’ won Army titles at junior and senior level and complemented these with Irish titles at the same grade. In 1951, he gained his first green vest and went on to make twenty-nine appearances for Ireland, losing on only three occasions.
      In 1956, the Drogheda man won the Irish senior lightweight crown by seeing off the challenge of the reigning champion, Steven Coffey. Byrne had been voted the best boxer of the championships and was selected on to the Irish team for the Melbourne Olympics. The scarcity of money in the Ireland of 1956 was the greatest barrier to Byrne undertaking his trip of a lifetime. However, the town of Drogheda was determined to fund Byrne’s trip and the ‘Send Byrne to Melbourne’ campaign was established.
      “Everyone in the town threw their weight behind the fundraising effort for me,” recalled Byrne. “The factories, pubs, shops, businesses all held events and in the end a sum of £653 was raised which was more than enough to see me there and back. I have the town of Drogheda to thank for my Olympic experience and the people couldn’t have been kinder to me. For a man who had never in his life been more than a mile away from cow dung, I just could not explain what a trip to Australia meant. We went to America first and our only knowledge of the States had come through the Hollywood movies.”
      At an event that autumn held at the Gate Cinema, the funds raised were presented to the President of the Irish Boxing Association, Chief Superintendent PJ Carroll, and Tony Byrne was on his way to Australia as Ireland’s chosen lightweight. He was named as the Irish team captain and remembers well carrying the Tricolour around the Olympic Stadium. A flag, together with a blazer, tracksuit, vests, shorts and tie he retains in his Edmonton home to this day.
      “I had been the number one choice by the IABA for the Games and holding the flag in the Stadium is an honour I will never forget. After we left the Stadium there was an army truck outside and a soldier was collecting the flags and placing them neatly into the back. I remember that the Irish flagpole was jutting out and Harry Perry said to me that I should take it on to the team bus as a souvenir of the Games. I grabbed it and it was quite a struggle to get the pole into the bus. So this guy was watching us trying to get it on to the bus and he suggested that we lose the pole and keep the flag. So we did and to this day the flag I held in Melbourne is a permanent fixture in my home.”
     

Read the second part of Tony "Socks" Byrne - “Sock it to him Anthony!”
From the Appletree Press title: Legends of Irish Boxing by Barry Flynn.