Tribute: Jim Coffey
November 26, 2019 | by Matt Halfpenny
England Boxing has received the following tribute to Jim Coffey, who has served the sport of boxing with distinction for more than half a century in a number of roles.
Tribute written by Nathan Pearce, Operations Officer, Army and UK Armed Forces Boxing Associations.
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Major Retired James Coffey, Royal Signals, was involved in boxing from 1967 (52 years), much of this as a soldier and then as a member of the Army and UK Armed Forces Boxing Association.
Jim began boxing in the Army as a Welterweight and during the 70-71 season he began coaching and decided to put his efforts in to this discipline of the sport, stopping boxing in 1972.
He coached all over the world and at representative level, coaching a successful Southern Command Team, a Hong Kong Army team and British Army of the Rhine representative team.
Having excelled at coaching, Jim took his R&Js course and started officiating in 1978.
Not content with just competitive boxing, coaching and officiating, Jim decided that he needed to try all aspects of boxing and became the Army Junior Team manager, an appointment he held for seven years from 1985-92.
His boxing CV is pretty special and includes refereeing the Amateur Boxing Association of England Senior Elite Finals in 2005 and in his career he was in the middle for bouts featuring Amir Khan, David Price and John Conteh.
An extremely humble man, Jim demonstrated where priorities lay in that he thought his best achievement in the sport was winning the Minor Units Team Champs as coach with 211 Sig Sqn from 1982-84.
He has been a stalwart supporter of Army Boxing and, until ill-health limited his travel, he was a member of the England Boxing Technical Rules Sub-committee.
Jim was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Army in 2015 for his services to boxing.
He will be sadly missed amongst the forces and Midlands boxing communities but also to many current and veteran soldiers who he helped, mentored and managed in his career in uniform and then as a civil servant.
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Jim is pictured receiving his Lifetime achievement Award from Matt Dawson (England Rugby) in 2015.
