http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/feed/group_discuss Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:53:39 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/183/dai-dollings-on-americans http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/183



Ray Arcel would fall under the care of Dai Dollings of Swansea, who had trained boxers and marathon runners as far back as the 1890's, and had been a bare-knuckle fighter of sound reputation, claiming to have fought some 30 battles.  Settling in New York, he would walk a hundred blocks to Grupp's gym in all weathers, complaining about the softness of life in the U.S. he would say,

 

  "You bloody Americans, you're made of tissue paper"

 

Initially, he was equally scathing of Ray Arcel's desire to be a trainer,

 

  "The hell with a trainer.  You want to be analyst....."

 


A much more in-depth account of Dai Dollings ' quite remarkable life can be found in the forthcoming Welsh boxing book :

 

Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies
Published by Peerless Press, Cardiff
ISBN : 978-0-9570342-3-5
Price £14.99
Published : 31/8/2016
451 Pages, 56 black and white photos and illustrations

]]> Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:25:04 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/182/jack-scarrott-on-jimmy-wilde http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/182




'Brutality ! mister, that’s what some people called it, when Jimmy Wilde started on my booth.  I remember I had him boxing for me at Taff’s Well when he was about 16 or 17 years of age.  Some gentleman came along and said it was brutality to put such a delicate little boy to box in the booth.  They got quite angry about it, and told me to take him away before somebody hurt him.  I said to them, “Now don’t you excited at all, gentlemen.  There’s no need to worry about this lad getting hurt.  You wait until the boxing starts and you’ll see who’ll be doing the hurting.  Up comes a mountain fighter about 30 years of age and weighing about 12 stone who was supposed to be the cock of the walk in the Pentyrch, Tongwynlais and Taff’s Well area.  I said, “I’ll give you £1 if you’ll stand three rounds against this little nipper.”  The people started shouting “Shame” because this chap looked big enough to eat Jimmy, but in the second round Jimmy caught him with a right on the chin and laid him dead out.  It took us nearly ten minutes to get him round....'



( Jack Scarrott speaking about his life in 1936 )



Taken from : Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies
Published by Peerless Press, Cardiff

ISBN : 978-0-9570342-3-5
Price £14.99
Published : 31/8/2016
451 Pages, 56 black and white photos and illustrations 

]]> Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:21:53 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/181/jimmy-wilde-and-jack-scarrottextract-from-new-book http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/181









Jack Scarrott on Jimmy Wilde:



'Brutality ! mister, that’s what some people called it, when Jimmy Wilde started on my booth.  I remember I had him boxing for me at Taff’s Well when he was about 16 or 17 years of age.  Some gentleman came along and said it was brutality to put such a delicate little boy to box in the booth.  They got quite angry about it, and told me to take him away before somebody hurt him.  I said to them, “Now don’t you excited at all, gentlemen.  There’s no need to worry about this lad getting hurt.  You wait until the boxing starts and you’ll see who’ll be doing the hurting.  Up comes a mountain fighter about 30 years of age and weighing about 12 stone who was supposed to be the cock of the walk in the Pentyrch, Tongwynlais and Taff’s Well area.  I said, “I’ll give you £1 if you’ll stand three rounds against this little nipper.”  The people started shouting “Shame” because this chap looked big enough to eat Jimmy, but in the second round Jimmy caught him with a right on the chin and laid him dead out.  It took us nearly ten minutes to get him round....'



( Jack Scarrott speaking about his life in 1936 )



Taken from : Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies
Published by Peerless Press, Cardiff

ISBN : 978-0-9570342-3-5
Price £14.99
Published : 31/8/2016
451 Pages, 56 black and white photos and illustrations 













]]> Mon, 01 Aug 2016 03:29:18 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/180/jack-scarrotts-prize-fighters-memoirs-of-a-welsh-boxing-booth-showman-by-lawrence-davies http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/ceri-shaw/group_discuss/180

Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies



"Fifty years I’ve been in the game, mister, and all that time I’ve been right here in the mining valleys.  I know every town and village in South Wales, and I knew every boxer worth calling a fighting man they ever turned out.  Dai St. John, Tom Thomas, Jim Driscoll, Freddy Welsh, Johnny Basham, Jimmy Wilde, Percy Jones, and many more that were before their time.  I knew them all, and a good few started with me in my booth.  I was scrapping for a living in a boxing booth before I started a booth on my own, and I was only about twenty one when I started on my own.  Believe me, the life of a booth boxer in those days was tough.  Mountain fighters! That’s what they called the miners who used to fight bare-knuckle on the mountains.  To tell you the truth, mister, we booth boxers were afraid of them. They used to come to the fairgrounds from the collieries with their gangs with them, most of ’em half drunk, and the very sight of them was enough to freeze the heart out of a bull terrier. Broken noses, black eyes, cauliflower ears, lumps knocked off ’em.  If they heard that there was a well-known champion in a boxing booth at a particular fair they’d walk fifty miles to have a go at him......"



( Jack Scarrott speaking about his life in 1936 )



Jack Scarrott’s Prize Fighters – Memoirs of a Welsh Boxing Booth Showman by Lawrence Davies
Published by Peerless Press, Cardiff



ISBN : 978-0-9570342-3-5
Price £14.99
Published : 31/8/2016
451 Pages, 56 black and white photos and illustrations

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