Brodie's Trainer Talks Crolla Bout, Career Path, More

By Terence Dooley

Joe Pennington takes Michael Brodie into a local showdown with Anthony Crolla later this month.  The experienced trainer hopes that he can guide Brodie back into the title mix; a win against Crolla will consolidate Brodie’s August comeback triumph over Mark Alexander and prove that the 35-year-old still has a lot to offer on the domestic scene.

Firstly, Pennington talked about his own boxing career, a journey that has taken him from the legendary Champ’s Camp to his own club, Northside ABA in Clayton.  “I boxed as a kid,” recalled Pennington. 

“I then went to work and things got in the way of so I stopped boxing and started training kids.  I went out on my own back and have been working on coaching kids ever since, producing top-class amateur boxers.  I was in the Phil Martin [Champ’s Camp] team and went all over the country with the kids from Mosside.  I used to watch Phil train the pros and picked things up for him.  I got my own gym by getting a room in a Scout’s hut near my house, hiring it for five pounds a week.  After Phil died I started up Northside Boxing Club.

“I was putting my hands in my pockets for the first years, spending the money I’d worked hard to earn.  Soon as we got going we had amateur novice champions, then the likes of Wayne Pinder, who boxed Carl Froch as an amateur, and had all these young kids coming through.

“We built the gym up.  After a few years we saw that the building we are at now was boarded up.  So I wrote to the people who owned it and they told us it was going to auction and to put a bid in.  I got a loan to get the building and the bid was accepted.  It took us months to get it renovated and get things up-and-running but we then started turning out national amateur titles and have had national titles every year since 2000.”

Pennington built up a considerable reputation as an amateur coach, turning out champs for a near-decade.  The trainer plucked out a few names from the chorus line of Northside fighters past and present.

“Wayne Pinder, Craig Watson, John and Joe Murray and Anthony Belshaw,” he said when talking about some of the best amateurs he worked with.  “One of the best was Kallum De’ath, he won the Boys Clubs 50kg final in 2004.  He then turned pro with Anthony Farnell but didn’t like the pro game and came back here after going 2-0.  We’ve had some good names here.  We’ve had guys who have got to finals and not won them and they don’t get mentioned, but they are still good lads.”

Joe believes that a fighter’s skills are taught on the pads and then forged in sparring; he tries to mix things up during sessions, using his experienced lads to impart experience to the young guys.  “You get a novice sparring with a top-class amateur and they learn quicker,” explained Pennington. 

“Novices sparring novices won’t learn.  So we put in those sessions and the ten-years of hard work to get to title level and have tried to maintain that.  We’ve had an extension built this year so the gym was a bit of a mess; it made an impact on the kids in the finals.  I was working here seven days a week - 5.30am through to the night to make it work.”

Recently, Pennington has been making waves in the professional game, guiding Craig Watson to the Commonwealth welterweight title, a title he won by defeating Namibia’s Ali Nuumbembe in eight bloody rounds. 

However, Craig lost that belt earlier this year after a nip-and-tuck twelve rounds with John O’Donnell.  The margin was narrow, two scores of 114-115 for John and a 116-112 card in favour of Watson, but Pennington still feels aggrieved, believing that his man was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He said: “Craig lost to John O’Donnell and there was a lot of politics there.  Craig was the away fighter and I think he wasn’t the favoured fighter.  I thought Craig would stop him in seven or eight rounds but he seemed to step off a lot when he should have pressed the advantage – I don’t understand it but that is what he did.

“He then came back to the gym more focussed and has trained even harder than before.  He’s learned from it and the defeats he’s had to O’Donnell, John Fewkes and Daniele Petrucci [for the vacant European title] has taught him lessons.  I didn’t want those fights but Craig needed the money so we took them.  In the Fewkes [a points loss over eight round] one he struggled on the weight and Fewkes was a good, unbeaten fighter at that point.”

“For the EBU one we went over there by ourselves for a fight with a 19-0 guy and paid the price.  It didn’t bother us going over there.  Craig thought he’d knock him out but you can’t always do that and can’t always take fights at short notice.

“We had top preparation for the Matthew Hatton Commonwealth defence.  It was twelve-rounds of top class boxing.  Craig maintained a high workrate and never got tired.  He got tired in the McDonnell fight but woke up in the last couple of rounds.  I thought he could have knocked him out in the last but John kept going.  Craig’s gone down in weight now so we won’t get a rematch.  I thought he looked a bit flabby in the McDonnell fight so with dedication he can make 140lb, he can do it safely and keep himself sharp.”

The next big fight on the Pennington horizon is the Brodie-Crolla match-up.  Brodie has huge reservoirs of experience but is on the wrong side of 30.  Plus, his career has been as hard as it has been successful.  Pennington, though, believes that a prepared and focussed Brodie has too much for the inexperienced Crolla.

“Brodie is back, he came in at thirteen stone before his first comeback fight and we got him down to ten stone and had to prove to the board that we’d done it safely,” revealed Pennington.  “Brodie struggled at first but he got pushed on by the other lads and now they’re pushing hard to be as good as him.  Brodie trains hard, people don’t realise that about him, and he came here because people in Salford recommended me to him for that type of training.”

He continued: “The only time we’ve ever failed is when we don’t have time for the opponents but we’ve got time to study tapes and prepare for the big fights with Mike.  I know what Mike looks like in the gym and I manage him because I know who he can and can’t fight.  We’re not looking to ruin his comeback by him getting beat so we’re taking the fights that he needs at this time.  Tell us who he’s fighting, give us time and we’ll move on from that.  I’ve worked with him for a while, he struggled a bit at first but he’s buzzing off things now.”

So, Pennington, like Gallagher and Crolla, is talking a good fight and the Northside boss will ensure that Brodie is at his physical and mental peak come the 27th.  For Pennington, the work with Brodie will bring with it some high-profile nights; however, the veteran trainer has put in years of hard graft and come what may he will reap the seeds of that work during the next few years.

Brodie’s fight with Crolla will be the main undercard fight on the Anthony Small’s British and Commonwealth light-middleweight title defence against Thomas McDonagh at the Robin Park Arena, Wigan.  Tickets can be obtained by visiting www.brandhatton.com/TV; the fight will also be shown on Sky Sports. 

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