Obituary: Gil Sullivan

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Gil Sullivan stuck out his hand and said, "Gidday, I'm Gil. I'm bent." That was my introduction to Sullivan.

The last time I saw him I took him out for breakfast. The coffee, served in a reasonably ritzy hotel lobby, came with biscotti, which he wrapped in a napkin and stuck in his pocket.

"For lunch," he said, grinning cheekily from underneath the trademark, slightly grimy baseball cap.

The last time I heard from him, he called to say that he was at Auckland Central. Could I, please, come and bail him out.

This was a slight exaggeration. He had been thrown out of the Auckland Boxing Association gym again and issued with a trespass notice. He hadn't been taken into custody. He was just winding me up. He liked winding people up.

Don Mann, now business development manager for the Vodaphone Warriors, had dealings with Sullivan in another capacity, as a detective in the Auckland CIB when, in 1990, Sullivan broke into the ABA gym with an axe.

He remembers Sullivan as being "a real hard nut - but he was really passionate about his boxing and about his family."

Once met, never forgotten, says Mann. "He was an interesting guy. I liked him. And it was a lot of fun going to court."

Sullivan reserved his special brand of derision - part bluster, part defamatory utterances - for what he saw as flaws in the way boxing in New Zealand was run.

He saw himself as "Everyman," leading the charge from grassroots boxing against the powerful and the moneyed.

Dr John McKay, former president of the ABA and now president of the New Zealand Boxing Association, copped much of that flak.

On the death of the man he might well have called his nemesis, McKay said Sullivan was "a colourful hard case."

A loss to boxing? "Perhaps."

Sullivan began his boxing career at secondary school in Wellington. Although his major claim to fame in later years was, as a death notice put it, as "arguably the most argumentative man in boxing," his sons Marty and Sean went on to achieve considerable success in the ring.

Marty is a former middleweight champion; Sean the present welter and light-middleweight champion.

Marty said his father was "a good friend. And boxing people don't have many good friends."

Which is not to say that a family as outspoken as the Sullivan lot didn't have their moments. "He spoke his mind," Marty said.

At the time of his death, Sullivan was living in a boarding house in Balmoral (although he liked to tell me that he was living under Grafton Bridge.)

He died sometime after midnight, walking up Dominion Rd. He was more than likely spinning some grand scheme in his head as he strolled.

His family have given as his occupation for his death certificate that of "boxing promoter."

He would no doubt have had no objection to the addition, "and stirrer extraordinaire."

With Gil gone it will be safer to answer the phone. But a hell of a lot less interesting.