There are coaches who run clubs. And then there’s Joe Elliott, who has spent 47 years not so much coaching as embedding boxing into the walls of South Normanton itself. A fixture. A force. A man who has, for nearly half a century, occupied the same corner, sharpening young talent and steadying trembling hands without applause, without entitlement, and without ever once pretending it was about him.

In preparing this article, I wanted what felt like a simple thing: to find a photograph of Joe Eliot, on his own. Not surrounded by boxers, not mid-sentence offering advice. Just Joe. The archives and his own facebook albums containing 100s of photos, didn’t yield much. What it gave me, again and again, was Joe in the act of honouring others. Joe holding a young boxer’s arm aloft. Joe applauding someone else’s moment. Joe, off to the side, smiling not for the camera but for someone else’s success. Joe sitting next to Gordon, The only photo I could find where he wasn’t already halfway out of the frame was one I managed to corner him into. Yet I did find this gem of a photo below from circa 1977. 

To describe Joe as a head coach feels a little like calling the sea wet. It’s technically accurate, but ludicrously inadequate. His presence at the South Normanton School of Boxing predates the tattoos on most of the boxers’ fathers. Generations have passed through that gym, and none of them left without knowing what discipline felt like, what perseverance cost, and what it meant to be told you weren’t there yet—by someone who cared enough to make you believe you might be.

There is nothing ceremonial about Joe Eliot’s work. No glossy Instagram reels, no self-promoting slogans or platitudes about ‘the grind’. He has simply shown up, year after year, armed with a stopwatch, a bucket, and a constitution that seems to repel ego on contact. And yet, behind that dry wit and blunt counsel is the kind of legacy that ought to be carved into stone.

Boxing, for Joe, has never been about medals or photo finishes. It’s been about young people, often from threadbare lives, being given structure, purpose, a reason to think twice before choosing violence over effort. What he offers cannot be measured in titles, though there are plenty. It’s measured in men who became better men because he got hold of them early.

So when the conversation turns, as it inevitably must, to how the sport should honour its elders, there ought to be no hesitation. Joe Eliot shouldn’t merely be thanked he should be enshrined. Not with pomp, not with plaques, but with something fitting. Something formal. A role that matches the weight of his contribution.

Make him Lifetime Honorary Vice President of the East Midlands Region.

He’s already done the job for years quietly, loyally, and with more integrity than most titles deserve. Now it’s time we caught up.