TRIBUTES have poured in for ‘legendary’ Andover boxing coach Billy Pike, who died of pneumonia late last month at the age of 79.

Steve Pike, Billy’s son, has told how his father’s life led to him becoming a ‘great role model’ in the community.

Born to a large Romany family in 1936 in Andover, Mr Pike was one of seven with three brothers and three sisters.

Billy started boxing in his early teens after boxing coach Bill White caught him fighting with another lad. He told Billy that if he wanted to fight then he could fight in a boxing club in Enham Alamein.

Billy would eventually do the same for other young lads when he a became a boxing coach himself.

At 18 Billy was called up to do national service in Warminster, where he decided not to box.

However, the company’s captain changed Billy’s mind and for two years he took part in bouts for the army while being a physical training instructor.

On leave he would continue to box at Sam McKeown’s boxing booth at the bottom of Vigo Road.

He then travelled around the country fighting two or three times a day. Steve said that his dad probably had between 200 to 300 fights in total.

In the 1950s, Billy married Carole and the couple had five children: Mandy, Jimmy, Patsy, Steve and Billy Jnr. It was in 1974 that the Pike family moved to Mead Hedges and Billy started, in Steve’s words, the most successful boxing club in Hampshire, the Andover Boxing Club.

Steve said: “He was like a second dad to a lot of the lads.”

Among some of the boys that attended the club, Ian Painter won the Junior Amateur Boxing Association title. Steve himself reached the National Schoolboy and Junior ABA finals. He added: “There was no other club who could say that they had three young lads who went on to get to five major national finals, which was a massive feat for such a small club to be honest.”

Quinton Shillingford MBE also started at the club just before he turned 10 years-old. He won the National Amateur Boxing Championship title among many other accomplishments.

Quinton, who is now a boxing coach as well, said: “It was there I was to find a sport and a person that would change and channel my life and develop me as a person.

In amongst the sweat, blood and tears and sound of throwing leather, spinning ropes, heavy breathing and a lots of shouting, there was a man who stood out from the crowd.

“A man who everybody respected and loved, a man who did not judge you but expected the best from you.”

Quinton said that even after Billy retired in the mid-1980s, he would remain a friend, advisor and father-figure to many of the boys he used to teach.

Just before Christmas the great-grandfather-of-seven was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with myeloma, which led to kidney failure. He contracted pneumonia and died on Saturday 27 February.