SOLDIER BOXERS AT THE FRONT

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1917, Page 1

SOLDIER BOXERS AT THE FRONT

(By an Officer.) <! I cannot imagine how yon can attend such degrading spectacles.” How often have I had that said to me during my twenty-odd years of experience in boxing before the war, and when .1 muttered something about “ manly sport ” or “ I am a bit old-fashioned,” I little thought . that I should live to judge a glove -tight in Flanders with an aeroplane hovering above the ring, the hump ! hump! of big guns sounding on the horizon, and the audieuce composed t>£ English, French, and Belgian soldiers. 1 have judged boxing at the front under various conditions and in curious places —in a grass field with tiny French children playing round my legs, in a famous town hall, in an improvised kinema theatre, and in * the market-place. I have judged at a distance of twenty miles from the enemy and within five miles of him, 1 and I have chatted to the famous John Hopley and to Lieutenant Abbat, the champion amateur heavyweight of France, at the ring-side as if \ye were all at the National Sport- ' Ing Club, and I have yet to discover 1 a finer sport for producing men who will “ go over ” the parapet well and rush a Hun trench. 1 The open air is the place for a glove fight. Come into the market place with me and take a look at one, but as you push through the outskirts of the crowd mind that mule does not kick you, and do not get run over by that motor-lorry or trodden upon by the brigadier’s horse, for although if you meet with some mishap that padre in khaki will give you something to pull you round, you may just as 'well be careful. The crowd is about 1,500 strong and nearly every one' of them has been in danger of losing his life within the last twenty-four hours, and will be at it again before tomorrow night. They are front-line men, and, as the phrase runs, “ all the nobility and gentry of the neigh bour- , . hood are present,” Those are French soldiers over there sitting in a motor car and smoking caporal, and that ‘'young officer in a staff cap used to write magnificent Latin prose. I myself used to address juries in the law courts, and I came out with my company from the fire trench last night. Come on, or we shall never see anything. SPLENDID OPPONENTS. Above the heads of the crowd* even of those who are seated upon horses, rocks the wooden staging upon which the men are sparring—two magnificent specimens. Thud ! thud ! ’sound the blows, and the unflinching manner in which their bodies receive them is a test of fitness. Nasty opponents these in a bayonet charge, but excellent com- , pauy in billets, as their steady, smiling faces proclaim. It is Ireland versus {Scotland, with France and Belgium cheering both, and although the Irishman wins in the last round, the Scotsman has fought so well that he is certain of an extra prize awarded by the kindness of the Irishman’s commanding officer. No, it will not rain ; those little clouds of white wool far a\yay in the sky are only anti-aircraft shells bursting round a Roche aeroplane; lie will not do much “ spotting” to-day while the range and angle is as good as that. And sp, it goes on. and after the prize-giving the victors wdi share their winnings with the vanquished and swear that “Your awful uppercut in the second round nearly .stellenboshed me, old mam” You priceless people, you private soldiers, how my heart goes out to you ! The shades pi the old-time fighting men are watching you. I have trained boxers in a hut near Poperinghe whom I have been shelled with in the Ypres salient. I have been “over the top” with boxers whom I have judged in England. I have borrowed the basins and towels from the kindly ( R.A.M.C. and tried to buy shoes large enough for 14 stone men in a , French village .without result, and take it from ine that the best boxer in the battalion is one of the least likely mpn to give trouble ; lie is always brave, he is never a 1 “ b.ruiser,” and he accepts the discipline of the referee or his company commander without a murmur.

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