Yesterday’s Heroes: The Superb Mr. Hartley – Boxing Information
Again in the 1980s there was a quite popular advert on British Television set for BT’s Yellow Web pages in which an previous gentleman at some point tracks down a beloved e book, “Fly Fishing by J R Hartley”. Effectively, boxing has its individual bibliophile by the title of Hartley, and he was pretty an excellent gentleman.
I utilized to talk intermittently with R A Hartley lots of years in the past as he utilized to invest in and market boxing publications and publications, but he is most famed for his life’s work, the Background and Bibliography of Boxing Books. Bob attempted to create a full compendium of each and every boxing e book ever printed, both of those in the United kingdom and overseas, and he succeeded in getting, and detailing, about 2,100 of them. For anybody seriously fascinated in developing a collection of boxing books, and there are numerous of you, Bob’s guide is an vital resource of reference.
Bob always came throughout as fairly a discovered and scholarly gentleman and it came as a comprehensive shock to a lot of to find that he experienced an extensive occupation as a experienced boxer back in the 1930s. I have built it anything of a private mission to trace as lots of of Bob’s bouts as I can and, with him boxing in and around one particular of the backwaters of boxing at this time, Lincolnshire and East Anglia, it has not proved to be an uncomplicated job. A glance at his report reveals just how in depth qualified boxing was at this time, with several compact towns and villages that haven’t had a professional show for in excess of 80 decades showing on it.
Bob was born at Billingborough in South Lincolnshire, and he was the finest of a tiny team of around 8 other boxers who came from the village, and even right now its populace is only close to 1,000. He boxed as a middleweight, and he could punch. His report is adorned with clean up knockouts versus a host of adult males who, like him, ended up boxing primarily to put meals onto the family table.
With attendances at some of the halls he boxed at frequently amounting to only two or 3 hundred, no one particular was at any time heading to get wealthy from boxing close to there. The initial contest that I can trace for Bob took put at the Forester’s Hall in his have village, a six-rounder towards a lad from close by Bourne, on a monthly bill promoted by the Boston Boxing Syndicate and Bob knocked his man out in two rounds. He followed that up with a a single-spherical knockout at Grantham a 7 days afterwards towards a lad from Kirton.
Most of Bob’s early bouts took spot at Boston, Grantham, Spalding and Billingborough, where he was in a natural way a significant favourite, and he gained his very first 14 in a row. His initial defeat came in March 1934 when he was knocked out of the ring at Grantham in a bout towards Arthur ‘Knocker’ Freestone. In spite of a valiant attempt Bob could not get back again inside of the ring in time. Right after this Bob ongoing to plug absent in generally 8 and 10-rounders all over Lincs and East Anglia, boxing at Holbeach, Bourne, Skegness, Lincoln, Melton Mowbray and Woodhall Spa.
For the duration of 1936 he campaigned in Suffolk and Essex and then, in October 1937, he boxed at the Empress Cinema, Chatteris in a bill topped by regional hero, Eric Boon, whose meteoric vocation was just beginning to peak. This earned Bob his very first, and only, London contest. He drew in excess of 8 rounds with George Thurcell at Canning Town Marina and the BN report for the bout tells us about Bob’s fighting style “A actual sizzler and a toe-to-toe slam all the way with Hartley preventing splendidly.”
In his final contest Bob held the wonderful Dick Turpin to another 8-spherical draw at Rugby. After a 56-bout occupation, with only 11 losses, Bob remaining the ring for the consolation of his analyze to create the definitive boxing bibliography. What a man.