Known locally as Bernard Coward
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A Brute of A Bhoy
Rough and tough Pat O’Reilly looked the part of a wrestling villain and certainly lived up to it. The Ring magazine said that he earned the name of “The meanest character on the British wrestling scene.” A giant of a man, standing 6′ 3” tall and weighing in at over eighteen stones his wrestling career began no later than April, 1947. That was when we found him wrestling Robert McDonald at the Eldorado Stadium in Edinburgh.
As this is wrestling you won’t be surprised to learn his name was not O’Reilly and he certainly wasn’t Irish. It was said he assumed the Irish persona when working for a northern promoter. An Irishman failed to appear and so Bernard substituted as the fictional Pat O’Reilly, the so-called Irish heavyweight champion. We’ve no idea if that is true, but we have our doubts.
Bernard Coward was born in Chelmsford on 9th August, 1921. This was the name he was known by at his local hall, the Corn Exchange, where he was the local hero.
With the outbreak of World War 2 Bernard, unmarried and living at home with parents Henry and Maria, joined the R.A.F.
Not the most scientific or technically skilled of wrestlers O’Reilly’s bestial strength gave him the measure of most heavyweights. A report of one contest, in which he impressively defeated the American Pat Curry, the news reporter wasn’t overly enamoured by his style, ” The Irishman broke the holds of Curry with ridiculous ease, but insead of following up and seeking a way top in or knockout his opponent, he either strutted around the ring, flexing his muscles eyeing the crowd balefully, or aimed a few covert kicks at Curry.”
Bernard unceremoniously tossed the mighty Man Mountain Benny from the ring in the second round only for the Man Mountain fail to return. On another occasion Margerich Anaconda, one of the most fearsome of heavies also made an exit through the ropes and that was the end for him. Ray Apollon, Dave Armstrong, Hassan Ali Bey and a bloodied British heavyweight champion, Ernest Baldwin, also succumbed to the rowdy, rumbustious Essex Irishman. We told you this bhoy could handle himself.
Unsurprisingly Bert Assirati was one man who could overpower O’Reilly, but the series of bouts between the two remained forever amongst Bert’s most tumultuous. On one occasion the Boxing & Wrestling magazine reported, “It was sensational. Little more than a minute of the thrid round over and the champion was reeling to his corner, shaken and dazed, with one fall notched up against him – the first in a championship match since anyone could remember.”
A few days following this title match the champion left Britain for his global tour in 1952. Nearing a decade after it all started Pat O’Reilly disappeared from our rings in 1955. The name was recycled a few years later but this was a much lighter wrestler.
Bernard George Coward, alias Pat O’Reilly, died in 2002, aged 80.
Page added 26/04/2026
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