Our new website - boxinghistory.org.uk

Although our website boxinghistory.org.uk has not been formally launched, web pages are being constructed and plenty of information is already available to anyone interested in the history of boxing in Britain.

The site will tell the story of the development of professional boxing in Britain up to the year 1979 and will include a vast range of information, such as:

• The complete records, including photos and biographies, of every British Champion between 1909 and 1979.

Nights at Rochester Casino

By Bill Pullum

This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Derek O’Dell, Editor and Producer of ‘The Southern Ex-Boxer’, in which it was first published in 2005.

The mists of time spread a haze in the old memory department but I will tell of the things that I do recall and the events that brought me, in a roundabout way, to the Rochester Casino.

Turning pro in 1930 and barely reaching the flyweight limit, I was taken to the Blackfriars Ring by Matt Wells who thought I had high potentiality and wanted to manage me. I remember being appraised and questioned by Dan Sullivan the general-manager and matchmaker at The Ring who, in my youthful eyes, was a formidable gentleman who had a game leg and leaned on a stick. Matt, carried away by his enthusiasm, wanted me matched with Young Dusty of Newcastle over ten by two minute rounds. Turning to me, Sullivan said: "Lad, you're doing the fighting. What do you feel about it?" I replied, "Mr Sullivan, I would like to start right at the bottom and learn all about the game." "He's got more sense than you, Matt," said Sullivan and straightaway booked me for a six-rounder. Dear old Matt was very miffed with me but that experienced and tough Northern boy would have murdered me in my debut bout.

The itinerant showman: a boxing booth memoir

By R. A. Hartley

This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Derek O’Dell, Editor and Producer of ‘The Southern Ex-Boxer’, in which it was first published in 2001.

It was a fine old-fashioned summer during that year in the mid-1930s. We performers in the Wheatley and Legat Boxing Booth were doing well on our tour of Midlands fairgrounds: plenty of challengers to keep the show going and the spectators were quite generous with their "nobbins".

Our travellers included such legendary names as Sam Minto, Alf Paolozzi, and Tommy Steele, congenial companions - and all with a deep knowledge of booth-fighting. In fact, everyone was happy except Charlie Wheatley, part-owner and manager of the show, and son of the Professor of that ilk, whose booth had travelled the fairgrounds in the years up to and including the First World War.