Boxing: Leith Victoria packs a punch for 90th bash

Published on Friday 5 June 2009 10:26

THE only two Scottish brothers to win Olympic boxing medals, the only Scottish ex-boxer to referee a world heavyweight title fight, Scotland's first-ever professional world boxing champion . . . these are just a few of the achievements of the Leith Victoria club, founded 90 years ago in 1919.

Flyweight Johnny Hill was the first pro champ and the club has also produced three gold medals in the event now known as the Commonwealth Games. The first was in the 1930 British Empire Games, then in the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and then most recently Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

Boxers past and present will assemble tonight in the Edinburgh Masonic club at Shrubhill to mark nine decades of unbroken ring glory at home and abroad with a gala dinner and an eight-bout boxing programme topped by former Leith Vics' Scottish champion Tommy Philbin.

Club official Douglas Fraser said: "We have boxers and coaches from nearly every era of the club's history coming to mark the 90th anniversary.

"Old timers like 90-year-old Jimmy Craft, who was a great trainer in the 1950s and Joe Fortune, who groomed ex-world champion Alex Arthur to stardom after joining the club in 1942 will be there, along with the family of the late Alex Bell, who won eight Scottish titles ranging from middleweight to heavyweight between 1932-36.

"So will 1950s bantamweight star George Hand, all the way from Chicago. He's still very proud of his Leith Vics roots.

"Jackie Brown, the 1958 Commonwealth games flyweight gold winner and Alex Arthur who won the featherweight gold at the 1998 games will also make an appearance.

The club was founded by boxing-mad shipyard workers at Leith Victoria shipyard in 1919 and they were fortunate to have as an early coach Scotland's first-ever outright Lonsdale Belt winner, featherweight "Tancy" Lee, who coached his two nephews, George and James McKenzie, to win Olympic bronze and Silver in 1920 and 1924.

Other famous Leith Victoria old boys are flyweight George Smith, who refereed Muhammad Ali versus Henry Cooper in 1966, welterweight Eugene Henderson, who refereed "Sugar" Ray Robinson against Randolph Turpin in 1951 and Scotland's first-ever amateur gold medal winner from 1930 – lightweight Jim Rolland.

Fraser added: "Our aim is to be as successful in this 21st century as the club was in the last century."