Between the wars, when British boxing was the most strenuous -working, there were plenty of entrepreneurial promoters who want to earn a few pounds, putting professional tournaments, and with regular live entertainment opportunities is extremely confined for a working man, boxing has become something of a basic one, with tens of thousands of people regularly participating in weekly tournaments in all different places in this country.

At that time, there were no recreational centers or nightclubs or hotels outside the city, which could be used to formulate the program, like today, so the promoter had to make the best operate of what was available. Usually, three types of places were used for this purpose that would be unusual boxing backgrounds in 2023. Records of the fight against the century, show that they often appear in swimming baths, drilling rooms and ice rinks.

In my article I mentioned last week that boxing events at the Olympic Games in 1948 were staged at the Empire Pool, Wembley pool, and it is basic to forget that so many great competitions from the 1970s with Finnegan, Minter, Stacey and Magri also took place directly over the pool. When the box underwent a mini revival in the slow seventies and many other public programs were issued, some of these places returned to operate.

Gala baths in West Bromwich were used five times with Tony Sibson, Pat Cowdell and Johnny Owen All Boxing. I remember well when I went to Baths Hall in Darlington in November 1977 to see my aged partner REG LONG won the Northern Area title, strenuous in the 10-round war with Ralph Green. Both of these places, like many others, were demolished in the 1980s.

The iconic Hall York, in Bethnal Green, originally served as a bathhouse, and in years after the Second World War, most public boxing rooms in London doubled as swimming baths, Manor Place, Walworth, Paddington, Leyton and West Ham is typical examples. Plumstead baths were often used, and the accompanying photo shows that the Dipperary Denis Haugh boxer will start a competition with a private Smith of the Royal West Kents in 1911, and you can see how the ring was created uncertainly.

The second photograph presents Mike Sweeney and Danny Cripps, who boxed about 80 times, and you see how they give their hands at the end of the Westover Ice ice rink in Bournemouth in 1914. Freddie Mills had many of his early competitions in this place, which eventually closed in 1991.

The ice rinks were very popular during the Edwardian period, when the skater in the rooms underwent a huge boom. Fad soon ended, and Great Britain stayed with many huge, empty ice rinks that were perfect for boxing. The most eminent of them was Streatham, in southern London and fortunately, after complete renewal, it is still there. Place open to boxing on January 17, 1950, when the promoter of Stan Baker took care of the residence there. The state staged regular concerts in the 1950s, and when he closed his door for the last time in 1961, he presented several known names, including Terry Downes, Dave Charnley, Terry Spinks, Johnny Caldwell and Sammy McCarthy.

Drilling rooms appeared mainly as a result of the First Burska War in 1880, when it was found that many army recruits were not for military service. To improve matters, juvenile boys were encouraged to join the territorial army, and the drilling rooms were the place where they met every week. Hundreds of them were opened throughout Great Britain, and when the boxing started at the beginning of the 20th century, they perfectly matched as the places where the sports developed. I can’t say when the last program took place in one of these places, but in the 1920s and the 1930s their operate was fertile.

In this column I can’t ignore Ken Buchanan’s recent death. Earlier I said that I think Ken was the best purist that the United Kingdom has produced since the war. In his recent obituary, he was paid enough justice, so I would like to focus one of many good wins he had on his way to the boxing ladder.

I was always attracted to a competition in which one older and more experienced hero, a bit tender, but still with lots to offer, is tailored to the developing warrior with a real promise in an equal fight. A good example would be Dave Boy Green and John H Stacey in March 1977, when Banger Chatteris was simply too good for the former world champion from Bethnal Green. Another good example is the match between Buchanan, then only 22, and Maurice Cullen, a British master of lightweight, who creates the fourth defense, which took place at the English -American sports club in Mayfair in London in London in February 1968.

Maurice Cullen was another natural boxer and one of the best men who left the north -east, a region with a affluent boxing history. A few years ago I was at the exposure of his statue in his family shotton and it was clear, from the number of people who turned out to be on this occasion how tenderly remembered and respected. Cullen won the belt in the third defense when he defeated Terry Edwards in the novel ST James Hall in Newcastle and defended him for the fourth time, victory over Vic Andreetti in the same place in 1967. Lewis Ritson won the same belt in the same city, just a few years.

When two men were matched, Buchanan won all his 23 competitions, and his last win was over Spike McCormack during the full 12 rounds in the last eliminator at the National Sporting Club and could not be more ready in class against Cullen. Maurice was eight years older than Buchanan and was since the slow 1950s, when as a adolescent mine he became a professional after an amateur career in which he only won the North-East Championship. However, he came from the fight with his brother Terry and father Micha, preceding him as professionals.

In his last competition, Maurice fought at Madison Square Garden in Modern York, where he displaced Puerto-Rycan, Mike Cruz in 10 rounds and, like Buchanan, was more than ready to fight. In your preview, Bn The fan was more experienced Cullen, stating that “in a duel of left hands we have to get a master.” Most observers felt the same, expecting that the duel would pass fifteen and would be a master -class class. Bukmachi had Buchanan as a weaker 3/1.

Ken had other ideas. He had to survive an early storm when Cullen dictated the behavior with his Ramrod, but then released one of his most explosive performances. At the end of the fourth he dressed Cullen, just behind the bell, a combination. In the case of the sixth face, Cullen was marked, and Ken found his coverage when Cullen shattered on canvas on two more occasions with huge right -handed occasions. Cullen fought bravely in the next rounds, but then he was baked twice in the ninth round, and then eventually knocked out in eleven with another combination of the left. Cullen gave everything and did not give up his title without a real fight, but adolescent Buchanan was a revelation, and this fight represented his first huge step on the way to superstards. What great fighters were these two men and how much they miss them through their communities.

When Lonsdale’s belts were first awarded in 1909, the first three three went to Welshmen. Freddie Welsh from Pontypridd won the first BELT competition in the history when he defeated Johnny Summers at the National Sporting Club to win the lithe title on November 8, 1909. In February 1910, Jim Driscoll from Cardiff Seaman Arthur Hayes to win a featherweight champion. The third Welshman, Tom Thomas from Carncelyn, won the free medium weight title in December 1909, when he knocked out Charlie Wilson from Notting Hill in two rounds on December 20, 1909, both Welsh and Driscoll are legendary fighters who are well remembered today, but what about Thomas?

Unfortunately, Tom Thomas is practically forgotten, but he was a great warrior. I suspect that the main reason why few know him today is that only 20 months after he became the second owner of the Lonsdale belt, he died at the age of only 31 years venerable.

Thomas began in his hometown of southern Wales in 1899 and quickly considered the best medium weight in the valleys. He lived on an isolated farm just a few kilometers from Pontipridd and although he was not a miner himself, most boys with whom he had to fight in many Welsh rings at that time.

For the first time he gained importance in 1903, when he won the average weight competition at the National Sporting Club and remained in London for the rest of this year, winning useful victories in relation to some of the better weight of the middle capital. He returned to Wales in 1904 for four competitions, all of which he won at a distance. His experience in London told him that it was a place if he wanted to go to the championships, so in 1906 he resisted in London to realize these ambitions, and in the year he defeated Pat O’keefe to become a master of British medium weight.

Over the next five years, until his premature death, Thomas was harassed by rheumatism. This disease almost destroyed his aspirations to become the world champion in medium weight. He was matched with Willie Lewis, Harry Lewis and Eddie McGorta, all of whom were leading American pretenders at the time, but in each case his training was disturbed by his illness. Writing his obituary, John Murray, editor BnHe said that “he just couldn’t train. He was not able to move, so he was forced to pay to his bitter regret. Unfortunately for Tom, he did not like to publish the real reason why he was forced to refuse competitions. He was so often obliged to clarify that rheumatism attacked him again, that he began to be afraid, that people could suspect that he was exposing it only as an excuse. “

Despite the suffering so much because of the disease that usually affects people, when they are much older, Thomas still managed to win very decent victories, and in 16 competitions in which he fought after Master, he lost only two, against Jim Sullivan in November 1910, when he lost the title and against Bandsman Rice in his last competition, when Tom was not qualified in the 18th round in the 20th round in the 20th round in the 20th round in the 18th round in the 18th round in Wonderland. All his wins in this period came over space and most of them lasted only two or three rounds. He was undertaken by Bartley Connelly, another decent American, in the 20-round in Liverpool in 1908.

When he won the belt, he did it with clinical precision as Bn The report reveals: “Thomas, with his left hook to the chin, sent Wilson back through the ring. Tom jumped behind him and crashed his right position, and Wilson turned and dripped flat on his back with his arms pulled out. The deadly number has begun. “

Destitute Tom Thomas, at the time of his death, negotiations that would be in line with Billy Papke. It would be engaging.