27 Facts About Henry Cooper

Sir Henry Cooper was a British heavyweight boxer.

Henry Cooper was undefeated in British and Commonwealth heavyweight championship contests for twelve years and held the European heavyweight title for three years.

Henry Cooper is the only British boxer to have been awarded a knighthood.

Henry Cooper took up many jobs, including a paper round before school, and made money out of recycling golf balls to the clubhouse on the Beckenham course.

All three of the Cooper brothers excelled in sport, with George and Henry exercising talents particularly in football and cricket.

Henry Cooper started his boxing career in 1949, as an amateur with the Bellingham Boxing Club based at Athelney St School in Bellingham which was run and founded by Albert Colley and won seventy-three of eighty-four contests.

Henry Cooper represented Great Britain as a light heavyweight boxer at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Opponents were thus hit hardest with punches which Henry Cooper could throw from his front hand, closest to the opponent.

Henry Cooper had devised his own training regimen and felt that though lighter he was in the best condition of his career.

Ali's size, mobility, fast reflexes, and unorthodox defensive tactic of pulling back from punches made him a frustratingly elusive opponent, and Henry Cooper was later accused by Ali's camp of hitting on the break.

Ali, sensing the fight would be stopped because of the cut, began abandoning attempts of offense and instead began teasing and taunting Henry Cooper, lowering his guard and leaving his jaw exposed to the Brit.

Henry Cooper insisted that resulted in a delay of a minute or more in addition to the regulation time between rounds, and denied him a chance to finish off Ali while he was still dazed.

In 1966 Henry Cooper fought Ali for the heavyweight championship, for a second time at Arsenal Stadium, Highbury.

However, Ali was now alert to the danger posed by Henry Cooper's left and more cautious than he had been in the previous contest; he held Henry Cooper in a vice-like grip during clinches, and when told to break leapt backward several feet.

In May 1971, a 36-year-old Henry Cooper faced 21-year-old Joe Bugner, one of the biggest heavyweights in the world for the British, European, and Commonwealth belts.

Henry Cooper refused to speak to Gibbs for many years, but eventually agreed to shake his hand while they were at a charity event.

Henry Cooper was a frequent guest speaker for charity fund-raising events.

Henry Cooper became a "Name" at Lloyd's of London, which was a supposedly safe investment, but in the 1990s he was reportedly one of those who suffered enormous personal losses because of the unlimited liability which a "Name" was then responsible for, being forced to sell his Lonsdale belts.

Henry Cooper lived in Hildenborough, Kent, where he was the president of Nizels Golf Club.

Henry Cooper was married to Albina Genepri from 1960 until 2008.

Henry Cooper converted to her Catholic faith and described Albina, who "hated" his sport, as "an ideal wife for a boxer", never grumbling about his long absences before big fights and inviting journalists in for tea while they waited for Cooper to get out of bed the morning after bouts.

Henry Cooper was survived by their sons and two grandchildren.

Henry Cooper was the first to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award twice, in 1967 for going unbeaten and in 1970, when Henry Cooper had become the British, Commonwealth, and European heavyweight champion.

Henry Cooper is the only British boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright.

Henry Cooper was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1969, awarded a Papal Knighthood in 1978, and was knighted in 2000.

Henry Cooper is celebrated as one of the great Londoners in the "London Song" by Ray Davies on his 1998 album The Storyteller.

Henry Cooper was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1970 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Thames Television's Euston Road Studios.