Story behind this picture – Frankie Burns

By Gilbert Odd

This article and the accompanying photo are reproduced here with the kind permission of Derek O'Dell, to whom they were entrusted by the late Gilbert Odd for publication at a later date. 

The boxer on the floor has just been knocked out in a championship contest. A few days earlier he had saved someone from drowning. Did his heroic act cause his defeat?

The story of the boxers who sailed on the Titanic

In the January 21st 1911 edition of ‘Boxing’ under the article headed ‘Welsh Notes’ there appeared the following: “Wanted – a smart boxer. A well-known American sports promoter has just written to me from across the Atlantic to ask me to recommend a smart boxer for a trip across the water, and the terms, which I do not care to make public, will gladden the heart of the selected man. At present I have two lightweights in view, both good men, but I am in no great hurry to make the selection, as circumstances allow me ample time to do so.” The article was penned by the Welsh correspondent, Charles A Barnett, and it referred to an invitation he had received from a wealthy racehorse owner and sports promoter, Frank Torreyson.

The following week Barnett wrote that “As might have been expected, quite a shoal of boxers have written to me offering their services in answer to the announcement that I made last week.” Barnett added that he had been given a name by Torreyson and that until this person had accepted or declined the offer he would look no further.

'Boxing by the Sea' - The history of professional boxing at Morecambe

At one time the Winter Gardens at Morecambe, a seaside town in Lancashire, was one of the most important small hall venues in British boxing. Between 1928 to 1964 no fewer than 644 professional boxing promotions were staged there and men of the calibre of Jock McAvoy, Frankie Taylor, Johnny King, Jackie Brown, Frank Johnson and Jimmy Walsh all fought there.

Larry Braysher, one of Britain’s leading boxing memorabilia collectors and a local to the area, has recently published a fine book which tells the story of this famous boxing venue. ‘Boxing by the Sea’ is available direct from the author for £10.90 + £2.50 post and packing.

Boxing letters from 1938

Old-time newspapers really are fascinating. In the absence of TV, radio and archival film they provide an unrivalled insight into the lives of our forebears, including those who once inhabited the boxing world.

While fight reports and other newspaper editorial must conform to style constraints and, to an extent, the agenda of a publication, letters from readers need not. Often a letter will tell us as much about the personality of the letter writer as it does the topic of the letter. Like it or not, what we write can say more about us than we intend.

Aside from that, historical boxing letters can offer a rare insight into fight fans’ opinions of the time (without the distortion of hindsight), shed light on the careers of long-forgotten fighters and tell us about the lost customs of the ring; all with an immediacy that gives one the feeling, if only momentarily, of stepping through time.

The below selection of readers’ letters printed in Britain’s trade paper Boxing in 1938 provides a flavour of the fight game of that era.

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.

Imperial War Museum project reveals face of forgotten champion

Left to right: Dick Burge, Ernest Barry and Pat O’Keefe.

I noticed on the BBC News website on Friday an interesting piece about a project that is being co-ordinated by the Imperial War Museum to commemorate those who fought in the Great War. It states:

“This Armistice Day, the Imperial War Museum is hoping to keep alive their memories - and those of millions more who fought in World War One - by publishing 100 portraits of people who served in the war. It will continue to publish additional portraits every weekday until August 2014, the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war. Nigel Steel, historian at the Imperial War Museum says the project - called Faces of the First World War - will help reconnect people with the 1914-18 generation.”

One of the first 100 faces the Imperial War Museum has uncovered is that of Pat O’Keefe, three times British middleweight and light-heavyweight champion. This BBC article has inspired me to write about the boxers who joined up, as part of Kitchener’s Army, right at the beginning of the war.

Don Cockell: The Battersea Blacksmith

A letter marked "Please Forward" and addressed to Don Cockell had been kicking around in Jack Solomons' gymnasium for weeks. Don owned a hairdressing business near my home so I volunteered to deliver it. He and I bumped into each other in the shop doorway and I mean "bumped" – he was going out as I was going in.

This was in 1951 when Don was on a run of impressive wins over men like Freddie Beshore, Nick Barone, Lloyd Marshall and Albert Finch. The contest with Finch replaced a world-title challenge against Joey Maxim. Jack Solomons had Joey signed to a firm contract but the Board of Control stepped in and ordered Don to defend his national crown against the Croydon man.

A few weeks earlier I'd watched Cockell box an exhibition with Jack Gardner. His superb physique had brought murmurs from an admiring crowd. He was a splendid figure oozing fitness and ambition and gliding around the ring with sparkling footwork. The contrast with the man now standing in front of me in the shop doorway was stark. Now he was sallow-skinned, fat, and had a nasty boil on his neck. This was the man tipped to beat Maxim yet he looked less imposing than the dossers lolling around the park along the road. I was so shaken at his appearance that I nearly forgot the reason for my mission.

My Croydon mates

By Gilbert Odd

Gilbert Odd joined the staff of 'Boxing' in 1922 and was later the Editor of its successor, 'Boxing News'. He wrote numerous boxing-related books and was recognised as one of Britain’s leading boxing historians and boxing writers. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) in 1995 and died in 1996, aged 93.

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.

Jack Hall (Thornton Heath)

Running round the Southern Railway's sports track at Mitcham one evening, training for a coming quarter-mile, a young fellow asked me if he could join me. Company at such times is always welcome, but we did not talk until we were changing afterwards.

He told me he was Jack Hall, lived in Thornton Heath, worked on the railway, and was a professional boxer. He started a friendship that lasted 60 years.

We talked about my recent visits to the Crystal Palace, where I'd seen Frank Goddard knock out Billy Wells, Roland Todd outpoint Ted Moore, and Albert Jeal draw with Wal Jordon. He told me he was periodically called upon to box in a minor bout at The Ring, Blackfriars, and invited me to his gym at Dennett Road, which turned out to be a loft over his father's stable.

He encouraged me to pull on a pair of well-worn gloves and step into the single-roped ring. It was difficult to avoid falling through it as there was a large square hole in the middle, through which a ladder had been placed to get us aloft.

World heavyweight champion behind the bar at your local!

Seen Mike Tyson down your local recently? At first glance this might seem like a ridiculous concept. An ex-world heavyweight champion in an English pub? In 1926 one of Tyson’s predecessors, a man from Canada, didn’t just visit an English pub, he was the landlord!

Tommy Burns held the world heavyweight title for two years. After losing to Jack Johnson in Sydney on Boxing Day 1908 he retired a wealthy man, free to indulge in his interests. He dabbled as a boxing promoter in more than a few countries and was always on the look-out for a budding heavyweight champion. He maybe thought he had found one in Luther McCarty. But poor Luther died, aged 21, in a contest against Arthur Pelkey at Calgary in 1913. Tommy Burns was the unfortunate promoter. In 1920 Tommy was tempted into his final comeback in a contest with Joe Beckett, the British heavyweight champion, at Olympia, London. After losing in seven rounds Tommy hung up his gloves for good.

George Davis: the Notting Hill hardman who KO'd a world champion

Notting Hill is best known today for its annual carnival, the trendy Portobello Road market, and the 1999 Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts romantic comedy that borrows its name. It's an area synonymous with trendiness and wealth; the place to be seen and to be from. But in the inter-war years Notting Hill was utterly different: a poor, crowded working-class district set in the shadows of the aristocratic mansions of Kensington. It was just the sort of socio-economic setting, however, to produce quality boxers.

It produced an abundance of them during 1920s and '30s, with at least 79 pro fighters representing the district within that 20-year period. By contrast, in the three decades after World War 2 (1945-75) only eight pro boxers fought out of Notting Hill. Hardship really does develop hard fighting men.

And there were few harder than George Davis, who was born in Notting Hill's Crescent Street in July 1918. One of 15 brothers and sisters, he was a nephew of the one-time British and world bantamweight champion Digger Stanley. Like most '20s schoolboys of the area, George's idol was the Anglo-Italian Notting Hill fighter Alf Mancini: one of the best men, at any weight, never to win a British title. Davis, along with many other west London lads, lingered outside of fight halls wherever Mancini boxed, eager to get a glimpse of his hero and find out how he had fared that night.