Frank Butler

Who was Frank Butler?

Frank Butler was a British sportswriter and author. He was one of Fleet Street's best-known and longest-serving sports editors, retiring from that position at the News of the World in 1982, after 22 years' service. Though Butler covered all sports, boxing was always his favourite.

His father, James Butler, was boxing correspondent at the Daily Herald, and introduced Frank to the sport at an early age. As a child Frank watched such stars as Augie Ratner, Mickey Walker and Georges Carpentier at their training camps, and saw the fights of leading British boxers such as Ted "Kid" Lewis, Ernie Rice and Harry Mason while perched between two press seats – one occupied by his father, and the other, as he remembered it, by either Charlie Rose or Fred Dartnell – themselves leading boxing correspondents. Before he was 10, Butler had watched innumerable boxing matches at notable venues such as the National Sporting Club, Premierland, the Blackfriars Ring, the Royal Albert Hall and Olympia.

At 16 Butler joined the Daily Express as a junior member of the Sports Department, and at 18 was reporting boxing and football under his own name.