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Boxing
Boxing has made occasional appearances as one of the organised school sports at High, most notably in the late 1910s and the early 1940s.
The late 1910s
A school boxing club was formed in 1917 under the tuition of Dave Smith (1886-1945), the heavyweight boxing champion of Australia at the time, and Ray Kearney, a boxing instructor and gym operator with Smith.
Amongst other things, boxing was used as a means for the rugby team to get into good condition.
A tournament was staged in 1917, open to the whole school with championships in welter, light, feather, bantam, and paper weight divisions.
The results were:
- School championship, James Alexander Vote
- Welterweight, W Burne
- Lightweight, Matthew George Speedy
- Featherweight, Thomas O’Donnell
- Bantamweight, Roy Milner Stonham
- Paperweight, S Williams.
In 1919, The Record reported that a “strong” boxing club had been formed under the charge of Reginald “Snowy” Baker (1884-1953) an Australian sportsman, Olympic boxer, sports promoter and, from 1920, an actor, entrepreneur and stunt coach in Hollywood.
The early 1940s
In August 1941, boxing championships for third year were held under the supervision of Mr R E Mobbs. The event raised money for Christmas hampers for the troops overseas. Class 3C won the class point score and were congratulated for “both skill and aggressiveness”. The results in each division were:
6 stone 7 pound Division (41.3 kg)—Greg Niccol defeated Charles Sayer.
7 stone Division (44.5kg)—J Willcox (3D) defeated Jack Lamb (3C).
7 stone 7 pound Division (47.6 kg)—Owen Bevan (3C) defeated Colin Watts (3D).
8 stone Division (50.8 kg)—Leonard Fienberg (3B) defeated Bruce McGlynn (3D).
8 stone 7 pound Division (54 kg)—James Reay (3C) defeated Keith Khan (3A).
9 stone 7 pound Division (60.3 kg)—J Ziems (3C) defeated Donald Mitchell (3D).
10 stone 7 pound Division (66.7 kg)—B Welsh (3C) defeated Robert Khan (3D)
In August 1944, the Cadets’ OC, Captain Acason, set up a boxing ring in the gymnasium for a boxing tournament. The trophy for best boxer on this occasion went to Keith Emerson (1944).
After school
We are not aware of any Old Boys who became amateur or professional boxers. However, Ernie Christensen (1934), an expert boxing writer on the staff of the Sydney afternoon paper, The Sun, was a judge for the Famechon-Harada world featherweight title fight in Tokyo in January 1970.
