BACK within the Nineteen Eighties there was a very talked-about advert on British TV for BT’s Yellow Pages wherein an previous gentleman ultimately tracks down a beloved ebook, “Fly Fishing by J R Hartley”. Well, boxing has its personal bibliophile by the title of Hartley, and he was fairly an distinctive man.
I used to speak intermittently with R A Hartley a few years in the past as he used to purchase and promote boxing books and magazines, however he’s most well-known for his life’s work, the History and Bibliography of Boxing Books. Bob tried to put in writing a whole compendium of each boxing ebook ever revealed, each within the UK and overseas, and he succeeded to find, and detailing, over 2,100 of them. For anybody critically concerned with constructing a group of boxing books, and there are a lot of of you, Bob’s ebook is a necessary supply of reference.
Bob all the time got here throughout as fairly a realized and scholarly gentleman and it got here as a whole shock to many to search out that he had an in depth profession as an expert boxer again within the Nineteen Thirties. I’ve made it one thing of a private mission to hint as lots of Bob’s bouts as I can and, with him boxing in and round one of many backwaters of boxing presently, Lincolnshire and East Anglia, it has not proved to be a straightforward activity. A look at his file reveals simply how intensive skilled boxing was presently, with many small cities and villages that haven’t had a professional present for over 80 years showing on it.
Bob was born at Billingborough in South Lincolnshire, and he was the perfect of a small group of round eight different boxers who got here from the village, and even right now its inhabitants is simply round 1,000. He boxed as a middleweight, and he may punch. His file is adorned with clear knockouts towards a number of males who, like him, had been boxing primarily to place meals onto the household desk.
With attendances at a number of the halls he boxed at usually amounting to solely two or 300, nobody was ever going to get wealthy from boxing round there. The first contest that I can hint for Bob befell on the Forester’s Hall in his personal village, a six-rounder towards a lad from close by Bourne, on a invoice promoted by the Boston Boxing Syndicate and Bob knocked his man out in two rounds. He adopted that up with a one-round knockout at Grantham every week later towards a lad from Kirton.
Most of Bob’s early bouts befell at Boston, Grantham, Spalding and Billingborough, the place he was naturally an enormous favorite, and he received his first 14 in a row. His first defeat got here in March 1934 when he was knocked out of the ring at Grantham in a bout towards Arthur ‘Knocker’ Freestone. Despite a valiant try Bob couldn’t get again contained in the ring in time. After this Bob continued to plug away in primarily eight and 10-rounders throughout Lincs and East Anglia, boxing at Holbeach, Bourne, Skegness, Lincoln, Melton Mowbray and Woodhall Spa.
During 1936 he campaigned in Suffolk and Essex after which, in October 1937, he boxed on the Empress Cinema, Chatteris in a invoice topped by native hero, Eric Boon, whose meteoric profession was simply beginning to peak. This earned Bob his first, and solely, London contest. He drew over eight rounds with George Thurcell at Canning Town Marina and the BN report for the bout tells us about Bob’s preventing type “A real sizzler and a toe-to-toe slam all the way with Hartley fighting splendidly.”
In his final contest Bob held the good Dick Turpin to a different eight-round draw at Rugby. After a 56-bout profession, with solely 11 losses, Bob left the ring for the consolation of his research to provide the definitive boxing bibliography. What a person.
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