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A TRIBUTE TO BILL STEVENS WHO RAN ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS GYM IN ENGAND.
BILL STEVENS GYM STRATFORD
Webpage layout by Stan of Stan's Gym Upminster as a memorial to BILL. Bill is greatly missed. |
If you have any photos of the late Bill Stevens or photos of Bill's Gym,
people training etc. Please submit them for possible inclusion. Photo on left 1982. |
CONTACT STAN: |
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Bill Stevens gym was up a long staircase. Bill used to start beginners in their training by getting them to run up and down his stairs. I remember it well. Back in 1980 when I first met Bill and trained in his gym we were soon to become friends. I say this but to be truthful, I guess Bill was a friend to everyone. Bill gave me great advise in how to run my own gym. Stan's Gym.
Bill was a great inspiration to a lot more people than I am sure he realized.
Bill was a really strong man who was at one time a good wrestler. I remember Bill telling me off when Arnold trained in his gym for a workout and how on that day Arnold
Schwarzenegger trained and didn't |
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bench more than 2501bs but trained very strict. Ah Bill may have said D.B fly's I am not sure.
Bill charged £1 per workout back in the early 80s and £5 membership. At the end of the evening I always remember Bill counting all his pound notes and chatting away to me answering all my training question. I remember telling Bill one day that my gym was getting very busy. I asked Bill When do I start turning people away. Bill said never. The more the better they love it. At on time I asked Bill for a heavy duty bench for my gym. Bill sold me an old bench press bench from his gym for £12. Now this bench in my opinion was the best bench in |
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the world, I put it in my gym as my most proudest piece of equipment. To think of it. All the great physiques that had been built using it. Bill used to sell me really cheap weights as well, he would bring them in his little van.
Ok this is the story I heard about how Bill's leg became filled with led as in the photo on the left.
Bill and a friend was picking up some money from a bank in Stratford in 1982. Bill saw his friend come out of the bank before Bill had met him. Three balaclava men attacked Bill's friend.
Bill raced across and lay ed into the three robbers kicking a hand gun out of ones hand only to |
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hear a big bang as the bank window shattered. Bill had been shot at point blank range with a sawn off shot gun. The men didn't get the money because his friend was a very tough man who had hung onto the money with all his might. Bill was seen chasing the three robbers up the road beating them with his big thick weight training belt. Bill and his friend were all over the papers. Bill was back training in his gym almost strait out of hospital as seen doing calf raises here on the right. Bill was certainly a tough man but everyone who knew him well also knew that he was a generous and very helpful man. Bill had a sign in his gym. "No fighting or you will go out through me". |
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Bill had a big heart and he loved his filmily. Bill was the kind of man that seemed indestructible and his laugh was infectious. Everyone I knew liked him or loved him. Bill would in a kindly way take the mickey out of all types of people making them laugh. Over the many years running my own gym Stan's Gym in Upminster I slowly trained at Bill's gym less and less. After becoming a competitive bodybuilder for a good few years I was to eventually get a very serious left shoulder injury and in time it stopped me weight training. After a few years I became very desperate and cryed out to God in repentance asking Jesus to heal me and he did. Can you imagine. Well I was slowly getting through all |
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my friends telling them of what God could do and that Jesus had saved me, when someone in my gym told me that my old friend Bill had passed away. I was so sad that I hadn't seen him. I still miss him. My condolences to all his family and all who also miss him. |
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Bodybuilder Mike Williams.
The first time I competed in a bodybuilding contest was at Bill Stevens’ Gym in Stratford, East London.
Bill Stevens used to hold an annual gym contest among his members, I entered, placed fifth and I was given a trophy (The trophy was very small).
Wow! To me that was one of my magic moments, my first bodybuilding trophy, |
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Mike Williams continues.
I can remember taking it and showing it to all my mates and they were all pleased for me. I think they had realised the significance of that trophy.
Its was a bodybuilding trophy signifying that I was a muscleman and for me that was strange, for now I bore no resemblance with ‘the me’ that every one knew at school, if I had mentioned to anyone when I was at school that when I left I would be joining a gym and eventually I would enter a muscle contest they would have laughed me into an asylum!
So for that reason me coming fifth in that show was a magical moment. |
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| DENNIS FITZPATRICK. |
"I trained at the gym from the age of about 15 in 1987. My dad, introduced me to the gym and I have many fond memories training there. It set me on my path to constantly strive through the hardships of training, through my career as a soldier in the Royal Green Jackets and later as an ultra endurance athlete. Many a time i'd be sitting on the business end of a 7.62mm accuracy international running through my stretches and muscle tensioning thinking about my time as a spotty teenager warming up by running up those long stairs...I remember them well!!!
The gym had character, and many characters to make it a great atmosphere. Little Bill behind the counter, Elvis the Royal Marine, Lewy the old boy, and Wilf Sylvester, the man who nearly ripped every muscle in my body at the tender age of 16. I also remember the place with some sorrow too, as one of my old training buddies there, Pat Pasi, was murdered in 2001. Pat was an accomplished martial artist, fighting and beating the champion Shaolin temple monk back in 1995."
I think it would be fitting to have the old Tramway renamed 'Bill Stevens way'. I still talk to many people about Stratford and if i'm explaining when people can't picture the Tramway, I always put in "where old Bill Stevens gym was" and people remember.
The web address is:
Postal address:
London Borough of Newham
Newham Dockside
1000 Dockside Road
London
E16 2QU
Take care and all the best with your gym.
Kind regards
Den
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