\n Trevor Francis, who was unable to attend the A Place to be Proud of Awards, was represented by his family as his decades of dedication to the town were recognised.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Francis arrived in Basingstoke in 1967 as part of the Windrush generation and went on to build a lasting legacy through both sport and community work.\n<\/p>\n
\n 2026 A Place To Be Proud Of Awards. Basingstoke’s finest are recognised at the awards evening at Audleys Wood Hotel (Image: Sean Dillow)\n<\/p>\n
\n A successful professional boxer, he competed in 38 contests between 1972 and 1977, losing only once to British great Alan Minter. But judges said his greatest impact came outside the ring.\n<\/p>\n
\n His gym in Essex Road became a cornerstone of the community, offering young people structure, discipline and belief. Many of those he mentored have gone on to become coaches themselves, continuing his influence across generations.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was also the father of Dean Francis, a British, European and Commonwealth champion, whose achievements reflected his father\u2019s guidance.\n<\/p>\n
\n Collecting the award, his daughter Colette Francis said she was \u201cshocked\u201d by the recognition, adding: \u201cThere are so many amazing people.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Judges said his nearly 60 years of service had left a lasting mark on the town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trevor Francis, who was unable to attend the A Place to be Proud of Awards, was represented by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-635219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}