Scott Welch has paid tribute to his former coach and his fellow coach at Brighton and Hove Amateur Boxing Club.

Dave Brown has died at the age of 78 after losing his battle with cancer.

Brown, who was from Lancing, had been battling cancer for the last ten years and passed away last week.

He started out as an amateur boxer but began helping out as a coach as a 16-year-old in Worthing.

Hundreds of boxers have been coached by him, including Welch when he was an amateur and Chris Eubank Jr before they embarked on their professional careers.

In 2017, Brown was awarded the World Boxing Council medal – an honour bestowed on very few by one of the sport’s most renowned organisations – at a dinner show at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton.

Brown (seated) was presented the award (pictured below) by former undisputed world middleweight champion Alan Minter (right), former IBO world super-middleweight champion Eubank Jr (left) and former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Welch (middle).

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After Welch retired he then worked with him at Brighton and Hove ABC and he has paid his tribute to his former coach and work colleague.

Welch said: “Dave sadly passed away last week. He has been fighting cancer for the last nine-and-a-half or ten years.

“He was given a diagnosis of nine months to live almost nine years ago, so we didn’t think he would get through that.

“He had done amazingly well to get through that and during that time he stayed in contact with the gym, he supported us at all the shows and he has been a wonderful man.

“I walked in this gym 36 years ago and he has been there 20 odd years before me, so he has been involved with the sport for over 50 years.”

Welch also recalled some of his memories of Brown.

He said: “I spent many years with him. He would drive me all over the country to take me to fights and we would get home at three or four o’clock in the morning.

“It was just me and him in the car in all weathers, we have skidded off roads, broken down in snow so we had some great times.

“We drove down to Margate once and I won in the first round and had done all of that journey and they asked for a rematch six weeks later because my opponent was not fit.

“We then jumped in the car and drove down there again and I knocked him out again in the first round and then we came back again.

“So we have had some great nights, winning the ABAs at the Albert Hall was one of the biggest nights because at the time I was one of the only ones to have won them in this area and that stood for many years, so that was a massive achievement.”