Relations between boxing and horse races date back to centuries. In the early days, racing and Shakers Newmarket were likely to pugism. In 1790, the two best British jockey, Chifney and Dick Goodison, developed a dispute about “Filthy Riding” with the fight for 100 Guinea aside insisted their patrons, prince Bedford and Prince Queensberry, respectively. In 1867, the relative John Douglas, 9. Marquis Queensberry, would give the name to the most renowned set of boxing rules. Boxing has long been popular among jockey and stable employees, to such an extent that at the beginning of the 20th century the annual boxing championships of stable LADS became an unchanging basis in the racing calendar and remained for decades. There was a great competition between stable races with finals that took place in prestigious places such as the National Sporting Club, Holborn Stadium, Royal Albert Hall and Hotel London Hilton.

It is said that Jokels are making good boxers and this is clearly true. Teddy Baldock Teddy [pictured above]who won the title of British weight and the version of the world crown in the 1920s, took place in Epsom as a jockey for a producer before he replaced the pitch on the ring. Three decades later, colleague East Ender Terry Spinks Canning Town made the same move with similar success. In the early 1950s, the Spinks was a jockey student at Newmarket, gaining every possible honor in the boxes of stable boys. After that, Terry won the crown of Flyight Abba, gold at the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 and the title of British featherweight as a professional.

Immediately after his career, pro Pinks began his former approval. Colin Lake (known as Lakey), who comes from Holloway in North London, was an avid amateur boxer before he became a student of jockey under the renowned coach and former Jokel Harry Wragg. Lakey won the boxing titles of stable boys for two years, and when the rider crushed 28 races with seven wins. This included a photo with the renowned Jokej Scobi Basley. “The victory of the race was like winning a fight,” said Lakey boxing writer Melanie Lloyd, “But the winning was better.”

So Colin turned into boxing. He had several older amateur competitions before he gave himself in October 1963, at the age of 21. In his 30-handed career, Pro moved to the title fight for the title fight with the British airy of juniors (currently the Super Feather Wweight). Lakey defeated the prevailing champion Jimmy Anderson by disqualification in a non-thicket duel in January 1969, but he stopped in seven rounds in his title offer a month later.

After retiring, Lakey became a boxing coach and founded his own amateur club in Newmarket. The decision paid dividends when he found a lot of potential boxers among stable boys. One of them, Ivor “The Engine” Jones, won three more titles of stable boys and fought for the crown of Bantamweight in the southern area. But Lakey’s greatest success as a coach appeared in the 1990s with another former stable boy from Newmarket, Colin Dunne. “Dynamo” Dunne won three stable boys’ championships, as well as the titles of students and juniors ABA, after which he changed a professional from Lakey as his coach and winning in the southern area and WBu Lightweight Honors.

The last mention must be directed to Jimmy Gill of Nottingham, who managed an unbelievable feat at the same time juggling horse races and a professional career. “Fighting Jockey”, as he was known, gathered 123 competitions in 1931–1950, winning 76 of them with an area title. Throughout this time he was also successful jockey, driving regular winners in both Great Britain and India as a rider of Maharaja from Coch-Behar. How all this is all is a secret.

Boxing, more than most sports, seems to generate many debates about who was greater than whom. I would do Muhammad Ali Mike Tyson’s battle? Was Marvin Hagler better than Carlos Monzon? Who was the best of the four kings? I usually like to stay away from these discussions, because they seem to lead to quite a lot of vitriol. I understand that thanks to advanced training techniques and preparing the diet, current warriors have an advantage over their counterparts from 100 years ago. However, I also feel that yesterday’s heroes came from more arduous times and there were many more fighters around, which had to be overcome to get to the top.

Considering who was the best of the British, I would say that Ted Kid Lewis was our best warrior, Ken Buchanan, our best boxer, Lennox Lewis, a man who achieved the most, contrary to the best, in the current age, and if someone is looking for the most exhilarating warrior, don’t look further than Nigel Benn. Perhaps the best of this was Jimmy Wilde.

Wilde is constantly on these letters, although I suspect that there are many younger fans, without particular interest in the archaic history of the ring, who wonder why it should be so. It is often claimed that Wilde had 600 professional fights. This is extremely untrue. He was a stand fighter, so he would cross gloves with at least 600 men, but most of them would not be professional boxers. Its detailed professional record is quite unclear and there are many different versions. Some of them contain inaccuracies, while others exclude several significant duels, including a loss. He had over 100 competitions and won the enormous majority of them at a distance. The man could hit with any hand. Nothing was known as “a ghost with a hammer in his hand.”

He often weighed much less than his opponents, even though he competed through his entire career in the lightest division. When he defeated American, Johnny Rosner, in 1916 he weighed 7 pounds (100 pounds) in the World Wagi Flyight competition. In 1916, he knocked out the future British weight champion in 1916, when he lost between 18 and 20 pounds, while in 1919 Wilde in 1919 Wilde issued a close sentence while fighting 14 pounds. One of his most unusual feats was to provide Joe Conn about two stones (28 pounds) in weight and four inches in 1918 and comprehensively transfers before the Londonian detained in 12 rounds.

Conn was then the highest feather scale, and in the next fight he met Tancey Lee for the British title and lasted until the 17th round. Before the competition, Wilde won 12 at the trot, and among his victims there were three men who once had a British title – Sid Smith, Tommy Noble and Curley Walker. He also defeated Welsh fees by Danny Morgan and Idris Jones in the schedule, and both men were the highest caliber.

The idea of ​​matching Wilde from Conn comes from promoter Jacek Callaghan. The show took place at Stamford Bridge, the house of Chelsea FC. It was not a natural match and I suspect that it was carefully produced to allow Wilde to let Wilde to demonstrate a enormous London audience, how versatile he was able to defeat a much heavier man.

I have some excellent photos from the fight – one of which is recreated here. Just look at the size difference. Also consider Conn’s face after hitting Wilde’s left hook. Body language is also revealed. Wilde looks like an aggressor, and Conn appears restraint. The largest British warrior in history? It’s Wilde for me.

When do you think about the ancient gym, what do you imagine? Floors, walls and chunky windows with dirt, ruined equipment and a shaky, colored with a blood ring? Go back 60 years or more, and this is probably an forthright representation of a typical British boxing gym. But there was one significant exception.

Cambridge Gym at 9 Earlham Street, at Cambridge Circus, in London West End was a bastion of neatness and purity thanks to the eccentric owner Joe Bloom. “You would be overlooked and he would circulate on the floor disinfecting,” a talented feather and featherlight in the 1940s and 1950s once told me. “Woe to anyone who dropped even a diminutive piece of paper on the floor of the beloved Joe gym”, reminded Boxing News “Elderly Timers” Doyen Ron Olver.

Although known as Southern Africa, Bloom was born in London on April 16, 1896. His father was sent to South Africa with Imperial Lithe Horse during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), and when the war ended Joe and his brothers, they joined him. As a newborn man, Bloom was an avid amateur boxer and was interested in medical matters. He joined the ST Emergency Service Organization, he worked in a hospital during World War I, and then continued working with an ambulance, which explains his obsession with hygiene.

In 1932 he returned to Great Britain, planning to work in greyhound races, but instead he entered boxing. The Olympic bronze medalist in South Africa Eddie Peirce was Joe’s first warrior. Bloom brought him to Great Britain in 1933 and directed him to a successful professional career. Soon other South African boxers appeared – Johnny Holt, Johnny Rust, Robey Leibbrandt and many others. Joe found them accommodation, looked after their general matters, and in 1936 he opened his Earlham Street plant. The place quickly became one of the best known in the country. Mecca for South African boxers, was also popular among businessmen and showbiznes stars who want to stay in shape.

Twenty-two world champions performed there at different times-primo Carner, Al Brown, Freddie Miller, Benny Lynch, John Henry Lewis, Henry Armstrong, Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin, Terry Downes, Sugar Ray Rayson I Sonny poston among them. It was also used for critical indicators.

Norman Giller, currently 81 -year -old, was a regular guest at the Bloom gym at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, when he wrote for BN under the pseudonym Ross Martin. It reminds: “The gym looked at Palace Theater and Down Shaftesbury Avenue and acted like a boudoir by a very picky, Martinet Joe.

“Joe was quite a figure, knocked and walking when I knew him, and he still had a robust accent Springbok. He was always flawless with freshly rooted wear in the gym, looking more like a doctor than a trainer. Many warriors felt the length of the language, if there was something less than organized. He liked to say:” You can eat dinner from my junior high school. ” When I participated in press conferences, he once insisted that reporters and photographers remove their shoes.

“A proud Jew, Joe, was furious [Jack] Solomons and [Harry] Levene, when after the war, they began to import German boxers. He belonged to anti -fastic movements and undertook [Oswald] Blackshirts Mosley in the celebrated battle at Cable Street from 1936. “

In addition to the spell, when Bloom served as PTI in RAF during World War II, he continued the gym for over 30 years. He was forced to close this place in 1967, when its owner raised the rent from 500 to 2000 pounds a year in accordance with the rising prices of real estate. But he returned to look after the gym control council in Havestock Hill on resident coach George Daly Free. Joe died in London in 1979, at the age of 82.