THE LIVERPOOL LIP

IF Billy Aird had been able to inflict on his fellow heavyweights even half the damage he did to the English language, Britain’s long wait for a world champion would have ended years ago.

Aird was perennial contender for the British title. For fourteen years, from 1970 to 1984, he was never out of the top four of the ratings. He fought twice for the British title and once for the European, yet it is as a master of the malapropism as much as his considerable worth in the ring, that he deserves to be remembered.

We first met in the late 1960s, when we were neighbours in New Cross, South London. We had much in common: We were of the same age (in fact, our birthdays were only five weeks apart), we were both living away from home, and we were starting out in our respective branches of the boxing business.

Billy had not yet launched the campaign of voluble self-promotion that earned him, inevitably, the nickname “The Liverpool Lip”, while I had recently started contributing freelance pieces to Boxing News.

We struck up a friendship,