South Yorkshire Times October 19, 1968

Boxing in Fred’s Young Days

The recent series of articles in the “Times” on South Yorkshire’s boxing legacy, has stirred up a considerable amount of interest, not only among the older readers who can remember the old time fighters, but also among the younger enthusiasts of the game.

Fred Oldfield was boxing nearly 50 years ago, not exactly a youngster, but he can recall a number of incidents which are complementary to the knowledge we have already received, and which throw a humorous light on the sport.

Fred, who now lives at 17, Windhill Avenue, Mexborough, was born in Swinton, and at the age of 14 he was working at Manvers Colliery. He had his first fight when he was 16, by which time he had moved to Rossington. That first competition resulted in a win against Billy Farr, and young Fred turned professional.

He remembers training in a Beaumont Street gym, behind the Plant Hotel, and at Cadeby Pit, where a number of fighters from the surrounding area would meet on a Sunday morning, Phil Walters, Frankie Lane among them.

Pitmen’s Champion

By the age of 20 he had taken the Lightweight Pitmen’s Championship Cup, when he defeated Ernest Kaye (Garforth) at Bradford. Shortly after this he won the Northern lightweight title by beating Jim Carney at Middlesbrough.

His manager was a Professor Louis Marx, who had gained brief fame by being the only man to, meet successfully the challenge of “Resista.’ “Resi:sta” was a Music Hall woman who invited men to attempt to lift her whatever mystic powers she possessed, which denied men the strength to lift her were of no avail against the Leeds Professor

During the depression of the 1920’s, Fred put on exhibition fights at soup kitchens. Boxers at this time were paid highly fluctuating purses, and Fred remembers one fellow fighter returning from an engagement in debt.

Fred received a letter from jock McEvoy recently. Jock was the undefeated ex-middleweight champion of Britain, and was forced to sell his Lonsdale Belt to a businessman, who returned it two years later. Fred met jock 38 years ago, and Fred, who was giving away a lot of weight, had to retire in the sixth round with two damaged ribs which prevented him fighting for six months.

Change In Procedure

When he was 24 he participated in one of the first fights in which the two boxers came out fighting instead of touching gloves, retiring a step and then boxing. The fight was against an American, Harry Randle, of Brooklyn, New York. “I was suspicious of Randle,” says Fred, “This was my first fight to these rules, and I kept a wary eye on him. When the bell went he came flying at me, I spun round in my corner and floored him. It had only lasted 15 seconds.” One fight in Middlesbrough Fred can distinctly remember is that against Paul McGuire.

McGuire bit a chunk out of Fred’s ear in the first round. “I told the referee to keep his eyes closed for the next round, he had missed that incident so he might as well miss what I proposed doing to him. I knocked him stone cold,” said Fred, breaking into a rueful smile.

“They were hard times, and they produced hard men. If it was difficult boxing for a living then there were equally many happy and entertaining times.”