Boxing: Ireland's cup returns back home to Leith

Published on Monday 4 July 2011 12:28

IT'S 50 years since Leith Victoria boxing great Alex Ireland passed away - but his memory will live long at the Capital club thanks to a historian of the sport.

Ian McIntosh, of the Grangemouth Civic Trust, has delighted Leith Vics officials after presenting them with a championship title trophy won by the Olympic silver medallist in 1921.

The cup, won by Ireland after out-pointing Londoner Peter O'Hanrahan for the British ABA welterweight title, had disappeared from public view for over half a century until historian McIntosh found it gathering dust in the ICI Sports Club in Grangemouth.

McIntosh revealed: "I discovered the trophy in a cupboard and, to be honest, didn't have a clue who Alex Ireland was or how his trophy got here. Indeed, at one point we thought that Ireland was a Grangemouth man until we were told he was a famous Leither who won Olympic silver at Antwerp in 1920. We are delighted to be reuniting this trophy with Ireland's former boxing club.''

Leith Vics club secretary Tony Reid beamed: "We are thrilled to place Alex's trophy in our club gym display cabinet where it belongs. We were at the Scottish Hall of Fame induction ceremony last year when Alex was inducted and, since he has no surviving family, we are very glad to become guardians of this valuable piece of Scottish boxing history.''

Born in Leith in 1901, Ireland reached the welterweight final of the 1920 Antwerp Olympics where a dubious points decision against him in favour of Canadian Tommy Schneider deprived him of becoming Scotland's first Olympic boxing gold medal winner. The boxer did, however, go on to become British champion at middleweight.

&#149 LEITH VICTORIA have presented Armed Forces' charity Help for Heroes with a cheque for over 4000 raised at a successful boxing dinner show in the Capital's Barcelo- Carlton Hotel last month.