Super middle/light heavy (13 stone walking around)

Mother :

Doreen Jeffries

Bobby Rimmer,Bobby Rimmer's Boxing academy Manchester

strength training with Kerry Kayes betta bodies Manchester

A bit of Tony's Story so far

I first walked into a boxing gym at the age of 10, when my Granda took me down one day. He was always showing me how to throw punches, ever since I learned how to walk. His son, my uncle, Billy Bryce, used to box and after 110 amateur fights turned pro. He took me to Lambton Street Boy's Club in my home town Sunderland. I also liked football and played for the school team (East Herrington Primary) and after a couple of weeks at the boxing gym I packed it in and just played footy. I was not really learning much there. Then my Mam took me to Plains Farm Boxing Club for a couple of weeks with some old friends, but we just messed about and never really trained, so my dad decided to take me to Sunderland Amateur Boxing Club. He said they were a good club, and his friend Nathan Cliff had just won a national title. Sunderland ABC was a very disciplined gym where you had to want to fight to join.

Bobby Bute was the coach in charge, with the other coach (and my coach to date) Jimmy Richardson and there was no carrying on with Bobby or he would send you home or even kick you out and not let you back. I used to have to spar with the older lads because, at 10, I was weighing about 49KG, and was tall for my age. I used to spar with Martin Marshall, Sean Kelly, Thomas Ratcliffe, Irum Greenwell and a few more lads. Sometimes I'd get punched about a bit and hated it, then I got my medical, but it was really hard for them to find me a fight because of my age and weight. So the club gave away a bit of weight and I lost my first 2 fights against a lad from Sunderland, both close on points. The nerves where unreal! I was shitting it! But after that I never got nervous again

Then I had a 2 more fights against Steven Palmer who went on to box for England, and I won those. Bobby Bute entered me into the school boy Championships class B in 1999. I got a bye to the semi-finals, stopped him then stopped the kid in the final. Before I knew it, I was National Champion, the first in seven years for my club, since Billy Terral won in 1992.

That was just the start. Since then I've won two Schoolboy Titles, two National Boys Club titles, The Junior A.B.A's, The Senior A.B.A's, The England Box-off's (Gold), and have also boxed for England a total of 42 times out of my 82 fights. I won Gold in the European Cadets in 2001 The first Englishman ever to do it, Gold in an Indian Junior Multi-Nations in 2003, then another Gold in the Liverpool Senior Multi-Nations in 2005. Silver in Italy in 2003, Silver in Finland Gee-Bee 2005, Silver in Lithuania 2005, Silver at the Commonwealth Fed's in Scotland 2005, Bronze in the European Juniors in 2003 at Poland, Bronze at the European Union in Madrid 2004, Bronze at the European Union at Sardinia 2005, Bronze at the Brandenburg cup in Germany 2003, and a Bronze at a Greece Multi-Nation in 2002.

At 21 I was going for Gold at Melbourne in the 2006 commonwealth games. I trained very hard for it and was in the best shape of my life, I got off to a flying start winning my first two fights by stoppage then in the next round I was up against Scotland's Kenny Anderson

I was very confident going into this fight although he had stopped he's first to opponents.

People was saying this should have been the final, I ended up losing by 5 points and I was absolutely devastated, then he went on to win Gold. After the Games I had surgery on my right hand, and was out for the rest of 2006,

I was still on the England boxing team and in 2007 got picked for the GB Olympic squad full time training team, I trained full time Monday to Thursday down at Sheffield until the world championships the Olympic qualifiers, and I boxed well and ended up Qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics - the first ever boxer to do that from Sunderland. This has been my long term goal ever since I can remember.

2008 ended up  being the best year of my life

I worked so so hard towards the Olympics games training at Sheffield with the other boxers our team Qualified 8 fighters for the games so there was a real buzz about the camp, we did a 10 day training camp at france up in the hills i few weeks before we went to China , when we where in Beijing and the boxing team ended up coming home with 3 medals 2 bronze and a gold , me and David Price picking up the 3 place medal with James DeGale coming home crowned the Olympic champion, i was the only british light heavy weight to win an Olympic medal in Over 60 year  and the Only Olympic medallist from my home city Sunderland ever in any sport ,

Since coming Back my life has defiantly  changed but for the good , i  have picked up a few awards including the BBC North East's Sports Personality Of The Year,

i switched on the City of Sunderland's Christmas lights.

In November i signed a 3 year Professional contract with well respected Promoter from Sheffield Dennis Hobson  which fell through due to him not being able to produce what he said he would , but that work out very well for me because when that fell through the highly respected Frank maloney got in touch and give me a great offer which included being able to box in my home town of Sunderland a couple of times a year

My coach is now Manchester's Bobby Rimmer who is well respected  and he's worked close with Ricky & Matthew Hatton, Mathew Macklin, Stephen Bell, Paul smith and is currently working with undefeated fighters in Brian Rose, Jack Anfield and Keiron Farrol i"I'm doing my weight training and nutrition with Kerry Keyes who is all so a big part of my conditioning

I Would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking time to read about me also I'd like to say a massive thank you to the people who have sponsored me over the years