George Aldridge (born 1 February 1936) is a former

middleweight Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Professional In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to . Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...

boxer who was British champion from 1962 to 1963 and fought for the European title in 1963.

Career

Born in London, Aldridge was raised in

Market Harborough Market Harborough is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, in the far southeast of the county, forming part of the border with Northamptonshire. Market Harborough's population was 25,143 in 2020. It is the admi ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

after his family were evacuated during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; There he joined the Market Harborough Amateur Boxing Club,Exhibition salutes illustrious boxing past
, ''

Harborough Mail ''The Harborough Mail'' is a weekly newspaper which serves Market Harborough and the surrounding area. The Harborough Mail was owned by Welland Valley Newspapers, a company established in April 1883, but is now part of Northamptonshire Newspape ...

'', 2 August 2006. Retrieved 1 August 2014 and made his professional debut in October 1956 with a draw against Paddy Delargy. A string of wins in 1957 led to a fight for the Midlands Area title in February 1958, which he won by a points decision over Les Allen. In July 1962 he fought Pat O'Grady for the vacant Southern Area title, winning on points over ten rounds. In November that year he beat John McCormack by a sixth-round knockout to become British champion, setting up a challenge for the European title against

László Papp László Papp (25 March 1926 – 16 October 2003) was a Hungarian professional boxer from Budapest. He was left-handed and won gold medals in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, and the 1956 Summer Olym ...

in Vienna in February 1963, which he lost by TKO in the fifteenth and final round. He defended his British title in May against Mick Leahy, losing by a first-round TKO after 1 minute 45 seconds.Harvey, Dan & White, Gerry (1997) ''The Barracks: A History of Victoria/Collins Barracks, Cork'', Mercier Press, , p. 168 After two fights in December 1963 he retired from boxing. Between 1973 and 1988 Aldridge ran The Talbot pub in Market Harborough.

References

External links

Career record
at boxrec.com 1936 births Middleweight boxers People from Market Harborough Sportspeople from Leicestershire Living people English male boxers {{England-boxing-bio-stub