When the Scottish boxer Dick McTaggart flew back from the 1956 Olympic Games in Australia, where he had won the gold medal in the lightweight division, nothing could have prepared him for the hero’s welcome he was given after travelling by train back to his home in Dundee. He was lifted on to the platform by two fellow boxers and carried out of the station, where he was besieged by hordes of well-wishers before being borne in an open-topped vehicle to his tenement home in the tough Dens Road area of the city, with fans lining the two-mile route.
McTaggart, who has died aged 89, remembered it all clearly in old age, even after dementia had begun to dim his recall of more recent events. “It was fantastic. Tears were running down my face,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. Peter Cain and John McVicar hoisted me on to their shoulders, then carried me up the stairs and out of the station. People were on the street all the way back to my home.”
Dundee had possessed few sporting heroes up to that point, and to this day there are many who would argue that McTaggart is still the greatest sportsman to have come from the city. There is even a persuasive argument to be made that he is Scotland’s best ever amateur boxer.
Aged just 21 at Melbourne, he became the first Scottish Olympic boxing champion, and in the process picked up the prestigious Val Barker award – the first Briton ever to do so – which is given to the fighter judged to have been the most talented boxer in any of the sport’s weight divisions at the Olympics.
He was born in Dundee as one of the 18 children of Richard, who worked in a nail factory, and his wife, Jean. Life was difficult for the huge family growing up in a three-bedroom home. Perhaps it was little surprise that Dick and his brothers were often involved in street skirmishes, as well as fights among themselves.
“One day Dad just decided that enough was enough,” he remembered. “He told us if we wanted to fight, we would have to go to the boxing gym. And that was how it started. I took to it right away. I really enjoyed the physical aspect of it, as well as the discipline of training.”
At St John’s high school he initially joined the Belmont Boxing Club in Dundee, but his aptitude for the sport became truly apparent when, after initially training as a butcher from the age of 14, he joined the RAF on national service before joining up as a regular, mainly working as a chef. At RAF Halton near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire he became the 1954 RAF champion, a title he would hold for five consecutive years while also becoming the armed forces champion four times.
In 1956 he was the Amateur Boxing Association lightweight champion, leading to his selection for the Great Britain Olympic team. He would claim the ABA title on a further four occasions (1958, 1960, 1963 and 1965), the last two as a light-welterweight (10 stone) after he found that he could no longer reach the lightweight limit (9st 9lb).
Standing almost 5ft 10in, he was tall for his weight and had a further style advantage by leading off with his right hand while fighting out of a left-handed stance. Always a snappy dresser, and choosing to be one of the first to wear white boxing boots, he became known as Dandy Dick McTaggart after the BBC boxing commentator Harry Carpenter referred to him as such during one of his fights.
Leading promoters of professional boxing tried long and hard to tempt him to turn over to the paid side of the sport. But McTaggart would not be persuaded, despite winning numerous medals, including the 1960 Olympic bronze when he lost a contentious semi-final against Poland’s Kazimierz Paździor. McTaggart also claimed a Commonwealth gold in 1958 in Cardiff, with a silver four years later, and a European gold in 1961.
“Professional boxing is all work and wages,” he said by way of explanation. “I enjoyed the freedom of having the odd drink and a fag when I felt like it. Once you turn pro it’s not sport anymore.”
However, there might have been other reasons that he turned his back on the potential of big money. In 1965 he also walked away from the amateur ring –after winning a reported 610 out of his 634 contests – saying that his fiancee, Doreen (nee Cochran), to whom he was married in 1966, wanted him to keep his good looks. He never boxed competitively thereafter, although he returned as a coach in later years.
Instead McTaggart became a ratcatcher after leaving the RAF and then ended his working days as an oil tester for Rolls-Royce. Nevertheless boxing remained his passion. He was made MBE in 1985 for services to the amateur sport, in which he maintained a keen interest into old age.
He is survived by Doreen, their three daughters, and another daughter from a previous relationship.
• Richard McTaggart, boxer, born Dundee 15 October 1935; died 9 March 2025
