MilesTempleton Boxing historian
REGULAR readers will know that I do like to unearth some of the more obscure aspects of British boxing history when writing these articles. Back in 1922 an attempt was made to form a boxing league, where teams of boxers from individual towns and villages within the South Wales coalfield would compete against each other, and after all of the bouts had been completed a judge would award the points, not to the boxers, but to the town. This idea sounds crazy now, of course, but 98 years ago South Wales was a very active boxing centre, with hundreds of boxers, and the formation of this league was an attempt to innovate and to perhaps replicate the traditional rivalry that naturally existed between these places on the rugby field.