MANY people worried for Tony Davis. The one-time England international, former Army boxing team head trainer and ex GB coach was in Istanbul last year. He was taking the Bahrain boxing team, that heโd set up, to a tournament. But he contracted Covid-19. He was struggling to breathe. He had to go to a local hospital. There it only got worse, worse than anyone looking in from outside Turkey at first realised. โMuch worse. Let me tell you, if you get just a sniff of what I went through, then youโd understand it. I wouldnโt wish that on my worst enemy. To be honest, I donโt know how I got through it. I wish I could say it was because I was thinking of my daughters, I was thinking of this, I was thinking of thatโฆ There were times when I couldnโt contact anyone, there were times when Iโd just roll over, just hope it would all go away. Iโve never experienced anything like that. Iโm just glad to be here and feeling a little bit like normal,โ Davis told Boxing News.
Davis was only 47 years old. He leads a healthy lifestyle. But rapidly he declined into a terrible condition. His oxygen levels were perilously low. Fluid was filling his lungs and he was in real pain. The first hospital he wound up in was grim. The treatment there just wasnโt good enough. He only continued to get worse. He said, โI started seeing people left and right disappearing. They werenโt going home likeโฆโ
โMy lungs were full of fluid it was just crazy,โ he added. โIt felt like sometimes you were okay and then it would just find another way to do you.โ
He was receiving well wishes from all over the boxing world, particularly from a Whatsapp group made up of fellow ex-GB boxers. People like Darren Barker, Tony Bellew, Matthew Marsh, Neil Perkins, Paul Smith, David Price, Sam Webb, Steve Birch, Steve Burke, Stephen Smith, Tony Jeffries, Tom Stalker, Frankie Gavin, Kevin Mitchell, Martin Power and many more. They kept in touch with him and his family. That meant a lot to Davis, even at his worst. โIt does give you a lift,โ Tony said. โIt feels good you knowโฆ Itโs just overwhelming.
โBoxing is just one big family.โ
That community meant a great deal to him. But in truth he was fading fast. Later an X-ray would show the extent of the scarring on his lungs, a mark of the damage the virus had been doing to him.
It was Bahrain that arranged and paid for him to be moved to another hospital, where he could be rushed into an intensive care unit. That saved his life. โWhen they put me in the ICU that was just horrendous but it was obviously what got me through it all,โ Davis said. โIt was the Bahrainis that made it happen in conjunction with my wife.
โThey said we have to move him otherwise he wonโt make itโฆ I know if I didnโt have them in my corner I wouldnโt be sat here now, Iโd just be a statistic.โ
He came very close to never going home. But he survived and is now with his family. He is recovering, though that is a slow process. He was still growing short of breath just walking up stairs and for the time being couldnโt take his boxers on the pads. โIt just felt a huge relief actually leaving Istanbul,โ Davis said. โGetting on that flight was just a huge relief.
โComing back to Newcastle, it was like a different type of air. It was like a giftโฆ There were a few tears when I come and seen my girls.โ
It was striking that while in such dire circumstances overseas Tony Davis received practically no support, not even translation services in the hospital, from the British government. Davis is a former soldier who was, though he never uses the word, a hero in the Westminster terror attack four years ago. Davis was first person to attend to Keith Palmer, the police officer killed outside the Houses of Parliament in 2017. It was just a coincidence that Tony had been there. At the time he was one of the GB coaches with the British Lionhearts World Series of Boxing team. The squad was at a charity function in parliament the day before a match. On their way out, Tony stopped by a tray of cakes. There he heard a commotion on Westminster bridge. He only discovered later that this was the terrorist driving a car into a pedestrians on the bridge, causing the deaths of four people. โI could see people running,โ he recalled. โObviously now I know people were running for their lives because he [the attacker] got out with two knives. He comes through the gates with two knives and Iโll never forget this, even though it was drizzling that day, a bit of sun trying to break through, I just caught the shine off the blades. And Iโll never forget that. I just seen him start attacking the policeman.โ
His instinct was to run towards the chaos. โI just want a gap so I could jump the fence,โ Davis said. โWhen I landed on my feet I thought s**t Iโve made the wrong decisionโฆ Thereโs pandemonium everywhere.
โBehind me there was a bodyguard sat there, heโs seen it happeningโฆ He ran up past me, within inches, and he put three rounds into him [the attacker]. A double tap and a single tap. So straight away I knew he was out of the equation.โ
Davis ran over to the fallen police officer. He knelt by him to try to assess his condition. Keith Palmer had wounds on his head, his arm and a terrible cut in his side above his stab vest. โIโm trying to reassure him, check his airway, his circulationโฆ His eyes are starting to go so I thinking heโs going into shock. So I go, โCome on mate, stay with us.โ I didnโt know his name at this point. Then I start looking at his other wounds,โ Tony said. โI can see blood just seeping into the cobbles. Army training kicked in in a wayโฆ I know heโs starting to go. Heโs in severe shock, his pulse is getting even weakerโฆ I try and stem the blood with the GB jacket, to try and close his wound.
โIt was just horrendousโฆ It seemed like a lifetime.โ
Paramedics eventually arrived and despite their heroic efforts, Keith Palmer did not survive. โI never realised what a knife can do to the human body,โ Tony said. โIt was horrendous really.
โI was proud of what I did in a way, but the outcome just wasnโt what I wanted.โ
โIf I didnโt have them cakes we might have been out,โ he added.
It was in Davisโ character to help. He hopes he can do that as a boxing coach. Thatโs why he took the job to build, from scratch, a boxing programme in Bahrain. Remarkably he got one of their boxers, super-heavyweight Danys Latypov, qualified for the Olympic Games. โHeโs got one opportunity of a life time to try and change his life, not only for him but for his family. Thatโs what itโs all about,โ Tony said. โThis is a mammoth task [to develop the Bahrain programme], not just because of what youโve got to do but itโs the mindset, the lifestyle and everything like that.
โItโs took a lot of structure and direction but when I look at that now I think it has been some journey and one I can be proud of in a way.โ
โThe way I look at it, itโs about changing peopleโs lives,โ he continued. โNow weโre planning on trying to be successful.โ
As a boxer it had always been Davisโ dream to go to an Olympics. He had boxed before his time as a solider. Heโd been on tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Germany. After being asked to train his regimental team, he rediscovered his passion for the sport. โI went to the Army individual championships, I boxed three guys there and ended up stopping them all. They asked me to come back to the team,โ he explained. โI ended up, probably not my wisest move, I ended up boxing in the Ulster championships for Monkstown. I did take a bit of a chance because where the championships were was called the Dockers club in Belfast and itโs an out of bounds area and if anyone had found out I was a soldier I could have been, you know, [but] when it comes to sport over there, they donโt allow politics to get involved as much.โ
It was actually a spar with David Haye back home in the north east that inspired him to enter and win the ABAs in 2002, and eventually join the international squad. Davis had been asked to come into an England training session as a sparring partner. โIโm just watching David Haye in the ring with a local guy called Carl Dukes, and David Haye is punching the hell out of him and Iโm thinking bloody hell. Iโm starting to get the nerves because Iโm in next. So I went in there and because I thought Iโve got decent feet and this that and the other, I did alright, I did well against him,โ Tony remembered. โHe did let me know he was still thereโฆ He just whipped a body shot in and it folded me in half nearly.
โI was just doing more technical work with David Haye [the next day] and he says to us you should go in the ABAs. Youโd win them. It filled me with a bit of confidence and that.โ
The last Englishman to beat Irish Olympic medallist Ken Egan, Davis missed out on Olympic qualification as a boxer, โthe ultimate dreamโ. He always hoped to go instead as a coach. โI thought Iโd given up the dream permanently when I left GB,โ he said. But instead now went with Bahrain. โItโs Guiness Book of Records stuff. Thatโs how I feel. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Iโd achieve this. Now Iโve got to try and push on make him successful and change his life,โ Tony added.
Heโs come so close to death. Today Tony Davis has a lot to look forward to. Home, training his boxers and a new kind of Olympic dream. โI cannot believe how close I was,โ he says. โIโm going to get some fresh air and just breathe it in.โ