Rear View Mirror: A look back on the boxing career of Pat Clinton

Rear View Mirror: Pat Clinton

Proud Scot Donald C Stewart reflects on the boxing career of Scottish boxing legend, Pat Clinton

Scotland has never been a place where you would find a heavyweight champion – we have had to find one from Congo in adopted Scot, Martin Bakole – but in the lower weight categories within boxing, we have always held more than our own.

That was no truer than with Pat Clinton. Born April 4, 1964, Patrick Clinton graced the professional square circle from 1985 to 1994, and from 1992 to 1993 was the WBO flyweight world champion. He was also the British flyweight champion from 1988 to 1989 – though we did not have a new champion until Clinton retired – and got the EBU European title in 1990.

Like many Scottish champions, Pat Clinton was a man who was born into the profession.

Hailing from Croy, between Kilsyth and Cumbernauld, one of six boys and four girls, his amateur pedigree saw him, in 1984, representing Great Britain at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, having won Commonwealth gold in the year prior.

It was not a wholly successful Olympics campaign, as he lost in the round of 16 to Redzepovski of Yugoslavia by knockout. He had got a decision win against Leonard Makanya of Swaziland in the round of 32.

But the Clinton legacy was more than a footnote for Pat. His father, Billy Clinton, was a former Scottish professional champion and his uncle Jim, an amateur champion who won two British ABA titles in 1944 and 1947.

Billy got the Scottish Pro Flyweight title in Perth – Pat was to go on and win it himself. In 1940, Billy Clinton also featured, somewhat unusually, in a world title fight on New Year's Day in 1941, in Dundee, of all places. Ayrshire Southpaw Jackie Paterson stopped Billy Clinton's dream of winning the world title.

As for Pat Clinton, the son, in October 1985, in Alfreton, he turned pro, getting a low-key debut points victory over Gordon Stobie.

It started a run of 11 fights without defeat. It included two wins over the legendary Des Gargano. In September 1987 Clinton stopped Joe Kelly in York Hall, and took the Scottish area flyweight title, then he faced Kelly for a second time with both the Scottish area and the British title at stake, back at York Hall six months later. Clinton won on points and added the British championship belt.

Clinton then faced Eyup Can for the vacant European flyweight title. Unfortunately, in Copenhagen in February 1989, he lost a unanimous decision. He did, however, successfully defend his British title against Danny Porter and David Alan Jones.

In Cagliari in August 1990, Pat Clinton then took to the ring for the second time for a European title and won by majority decision against the unbeaten Salvador Fanni. By this point, the trajectory that Clinton was on meant that he was going to be in a world title fight sooner rather than later. It came against Isidro Perez at Glasgow’s very own Kelvin Hall. At stake, was the WBO title.

In 2024 it was the subject of a night at the Webster's Theatre in Glasgow where Jim Orr brought to the stage, in a rehearsed reading, the story of that night.

He portrayed Tommy Gilmour almost losing himself as Clinton won a majority decision and brought home the belt that his father failed to. The real tragedy was his father was unable to see him fight due to a fatal heart attack which happened some years before.

Orr was able to tell how Clinton had gone into the fight struggling to make the weight. Around the halfway mark of the fight, Perez was really pushing Clinton.

By the end, Clinton had proven that he was not just world level, he was elite. This was a world title victory celebrated for many days thereafter. It was also what legendary Scottish promoter, Tommy Gilmour, still describes as his most cherished boxing memory.

In an interview with the Daily Record sometime later, Pat Clinton related the emotional scenes after the fight in the dressing room where his mother, Sadie, and he had the opportunity to reflect upon what had just happened; her son brought back what her husband was unable to do.

Unfortunately for Clinton, he continued to have weight issues though in September 1992 he defended his WBO title successfully in Glasgow at the SECC Arena against Danny Porter. It was not his finest fight, especially as he had beaten Porter before and much easier than in this fight.

Eight months after that first defence, Clinton then lost his title. South African Jake Matlala, a fantastic fighter of his generation and country, managed to stop Clinton inside eight rounds and take the WBO belt from him. Clinton kept going, went up in weight and in April 1994 at St Andrews Sporting Club in Glasgow, his final fight against Eddie Benton, who had a record of 11 fights, only seven of which were victories.

But it was that night, captured in prose by Jim Orr that stands out. And it is always the case in boxing that there is one event that defines a fighter.

Clinton stood tall, raised on the shoulders of a family of great pedigree and rose like a heavyweight name in the annals of Scottish boxing.

To date Orr has no plans to develop the play into a full production, mind you he would be a genius to replicate the drama of a world title fight.

DID YOU KNOW? In his thirties, as a result of perforated eardrums suffered during his boxing career, Pat Clinton suffered from tinnitus and started to lose his hearing, forced to start wearing a hearing aid at the age of 33. He returned to his trade as a joiner before going on to work as a salesman for British Gas.