Miles Templeton presents a study of the prosperous scene in Birmingham in the 1930s
HAVING received a lot of positive feedback from my October 6th article on boxing in the 1930s, and how much of that, I’ll expand on the subject a bit more by looking at activities in and around Birmingham during this time.
Birmingham has long been a hot spot for boxing. I think in 15 years either side of 1900 could claim to be Britain’s premier battle city, even ahead of London. Men like Billy Plimmer, Owen Moran and Jabez White built on the already formidable reputation Birmingham had developed for producing fighters during the male era. The foundation of the game in ‘City of a Thousand Jobs’ is the amateur scene. Amateur boxing was a staple of the game in the 1920s and many top professionals made their name in unpaid combat, of which Jack Hood and Bert Kirby are prime examples.
1931 Birmingham Gazette, a newspaper that took the game seriously, recorded the results of 499 professional tournaments. That was twice as many as today in the whole of the UK, and all of them took place within a radius of about thirty miles from Birmingham city centre.
Consider a typical week. The busiest month is November, when there are 61 shows, averaging two shows a day for the whole month. The first of the month is Sunday, and on that day one can choose to attend one of two weekly shows at the Palais de Danse, West Bromwich, or at the Navigation Street arena in nearby Walsall. The next day, events took place at Kent Street Baths, Birmingham, and Madeley, Nuneaton, Smethwick and Worcester. Tuesday sees another event at Smethwick and on Wednesday, performances at Dudley and 4thfield. Thursday was a quiet night, with only one show at the Argyle Boxing Club, on Moat Row, in Birmingham. Things really warm up on a Friday night when one can attend Drill Hall in Bilston, Handsworth Stadium, Town Hall in Oldbury, or the Sydenham Hotel in Small Heath. The last night, a Saturday, today the night most tournaments take place, was empty. For some reason Midlanders love to watch boxing during the week and do something else on their Saturday night.
At other times of the year, regular boxing takes place at Aston, Coseley, Coventry, Sparkbrook, Stourbridge, Tamworth, Tyseley, Fourbury and Wolverhampton, among others. During the summer, outdoor tournaments that draw large crowds can be seen at the football fields in Bilston, Bloxwich and Brierley Hill, the greyhounds track in Wolverhampton and at the Alexander Sports Grounds in Birmingham.
One of the big events of the year happens on December 14 at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, when the local Sports Commission holds their 11th annual charity event. At the top of the bill are twelve ‘three’ between local hero Len Tiger Smith and former British featherweight champion, Bethnal Green’s Harry Corbett. Below that includes Ferndale’s prolific Arnold Kid Sheppard, a 355 pro-competition veteran, against another local star, Charlie Rowbotham, London’s cracked Tommy Hyams against Charlie’s brother Jimmy in another round, and Walsall’s Peter Nolan played Worcester’s Peter Price, two promising prospects. An eighth-class flying scale made the bill. Fifty rounds of boxing for less than fifty shillings.
The Birmingham area is no stranger to these levels of activity, as boxing also takes place heavily in Wales, in the North East, around Nottingham and Leicester, in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and of course, in London. One can also be sure of another thing, every guy climbing those hoops wants to win because there’s no ‘far’ angle, as most guys live within a few miles of each other.
