Before training greats like Winstone, Buchanan and Jones, Eddie Thomas was some fighter himself

Yesterday’s Heroes

EDDIE Thomas of Merthyr excelled at each stage of the game for round 40 years. He will nonetheless be remembered at present by veterans of the sport as an astute supervisor who ran a compact little secure from his workplace in an ice cream parlour in his hometown, nestled deep contained in the Welsh valleys.

Among the various great fighters Eddie steered to stardom have been all-time greats Howard Winstone, Ken Buchanan, and Colin Jones. He had a number of different fighters all through the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies, together with Eddie Avoth, the British light-heavyweight champion between 1969 and 1971, and Carl Gizzi, who challenged for the British heavyweight title in 1969. 

As a fighter Eddie was rated world quantity two at welterweight within the January 1951 situation of the Ring journal. To present how nice an achievement this was, the one man that stood above him was Sugar Ray Robinson.

Like most nice boxers from this era, Eddie was an excellent beginner. Despite holding down a tricky job as a coalminer, he gained the Welsh light-weight championship in 1946 and adopted that up with victory on the ABAs 5 weeks later. Ten thousand followers crammed into the Empire Pool, Wembley, to see these championships and Eddie gained by in contests towards the Scottish entrant, T Fraser, and then the military champion, Ernie Thompson. Two weights above Eddie, 17-year-old Randolph Turpin was profitable at middleweight. Eddie and Randolph teamed up once more later that month as the 2 lads each gained for the ABA in a 5-3 victory towards a robust staff from the USA.

Eddie wasted no time in turning skilled. He gained his first contest simply six days after representing the ABA, and he beat Ivor Simpson of Basingstoke in a four-rounder on a Jack Solomons promotion at Harringay Arena. Top of the invoice that evening was a 12-rounder at heavyweight between Bruce Woodcock and Freddie Mills. Eddie was already competing alongside exalted firm, and with prime London supervisor Sam Burns taking care of his pursuits, his path to the highest was to be well-planned. 

He gained his first 10, with contests going down both on prime London reveals or within the small halls of South Wales, the place he was constructing a robust following. A cut-eye defeat to Yrjoe Piitulainen of Finland put the brakes on a little bit and an additional loss, in March 1948, towards seasoned fellow-Welshman Gwyn Williams in a British welterweight eliminator, triggered his staff to cease and suppose a little bit.

Eighteen straight victories then put issues proper and helped Eddie to maneuver from UK quantity 5 to world quantity two and a potential match with Sugar Ray. Along the way in which, Eddie picked up the British title. After beating veteran Ernie Roderick in an eliminator, Eddie then beat Henry Hall and Cliff Curvis in title bouts to realize two notches on a Lonsdale belt.

Unfortunately, Jack Solomons couldn’t full the negotiations for a world title contest, as Robinson was making good cash at middleweight and changing into a two-weight world champion. Instead, Eddie needed to make do with the Commonwealth title and then the European title, which he gained on the Market Hall, Carmarthen, of all locations.

Eddie was now on the peak of his profession and each the Board and the EBU recognised his subsequent contest, a European defence towards Frenchman Charles Humez, as a world title eliminator. Once once more, Eddie defended in his native Wales, this time at Porthcawl, however he got here off second finest, with BN reporting that Humez gave “a bustling exhibition of strong two-handed fighting that proved too much for Thomas. Eddie never appeared to be comfortable before the fury of his redoubtable opponent”.

He boxed on for 3 extra years, dropping his British title and, subsequently, the possibility of an outright Lonsdale Belt, however he then achieved a lot else as a supervisor. One of the best Welsh fighters, Eddie died in 1997, aged 71.