10 Greats From The Golden Age Of British Wrestling

10. Brian Glover

First up is Brian Glover, a very solid wrestler who came up against most of the others in this list over the course of his career but is now better known as an actor thanks to his roles in Kes, Porridge and Alien 3.

Born in 1934 into a wrestling family (Glover's dad wrestled as the "Red Devil"), he weathered a tough upbringing in Yorkshire to become a teacher of English and French, wrestling on the side. When a French wrestler failed to turn up to a match one night, Glover took his place and wrestled under his name for many years as "Leon Arras, the man from Paris." Glover liked to tell the story of how he met the real Leon Arras many years later and arm-wrestled him on French television for the rights to use the name (Glover won but always insisted that Arras let him).

Later, his value as a character actor came to the notice of big directors such as Ken Loach and David Fincher, securing his place in posterity. He died in 1997.