1939-06-13 — Page 25

THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 18, 1939.

McCoy Knocked Out The Champion In 45 Secs., But The Crowd Didn't Know He'd Been

TALKED

BY

W

WITH typical American satire they call him Dumb Dan Morgan-and he'll talk your ears off in ten min-

utes. Even the celebrated Jabber- ing Jimmy Johnston, and the equal- ly famed "We wuz robbed' Joe Ja- cobs sink into abashed silence when Dan gets going. He's a boxing man- ager, and still holds the managerial record of controlling three world champions at the same time-King Levinsky, Al McCoy and Jack Brit- ton. And here's the tale of how he talked an ordinary fighter into world's heavyweight championship.

a

In those days Dan had a huge stable of boxers. Every night of the week he had one of his men fighting some where in the United States. Among them was a rough, tough plug-ugly by the name of Al McCoy. Reared on the East Side, Al had to use his mitts for mere existenec, so by the time he grew up he was a formidable warrior of the slugger type, of pure boxing he knew little, but he was a terrific pun- cher, a really deadly man when he nail. ed a foe.

Page

By Leo Fuller

TITLE

INTO THE

MANAGER

HIS

1

In the dressing room before the con- test. Dan started in on a pet talk. Ac- tually he had only just signed up Mc- Cey and didn't know him very well.

Still, fixing his blue eyes earn- eatly on McCoy's brown, he let his imagination rip, and painted a glowing picture of the life of a world's champion.

He talked of wine, woman and song; of the colourful carpet that is laid at the feet of a champion boxer. He told him what a wonderful punch he had, and implored him not

to think of Chip's superior speed and science. In short he talked as only Dumb Dan could, and finished saying:

"One punch, Al. One punch can do him, and you've got just that dig. Just think what it means to you.

"

As if mesmerised, Al drank in every word. His eyes glowed; his mouth was open; he never answered.

At last came the call to enter the ring, and Al walked by Morgan's side with a far away look on his face. Pri vately Morgan felt that the look would be even more far away by the time Chip was through with him. 1

The men looked good as they stripped for action, McCoy, blond, good looking and magnificently muscled. Chip, slighter, yet with an obvious wiriness about him, and an air of altertness.

Fixed Stare

By some managerial genius, Morgan got him matched with George Chip, who was one of the finest middleweight champions the division has ever known,

McCoy looked anything but alert as a scientific man from head to foot, a he stood in the centre of the ring, lis- battling boxer with a great defence. tening to the referee's instructions. He The contest was in a small Brooklyn was staring fixedly at the champion, Hall, and didn't attract much atten- and his lips, though giving no audible tion, because it was one of those no sound, were framing words. Dan look decision' affairs, wherein a challenger ed at him in dismay, he though he'd had to knock out the champion to win. gone nuts. He looked closer, and then Nobody figured McCoy would do that; he realized with a shock that Al was it was just another fight, and not even repeating his own words. Dan himself thought much of his fight-

"One punch, Al. One puch can do er's chances at first.

him, and you've got just that dig.

LAWN BOWLS OPEN PAIRS DRAW

v E. E. Atkins

The draw for the Second Round J. C. Chalmers

At Hong Kong F.C.

of the Open Pairs Lawn Bowls w. R. Hillyer Competition was made yesterday. J. Hollidge

F. C. Channing v C. Dowman

It was agreed that the rinks

At Kowloon B.G.C. J. E. Noronha games postponed from last Sunday C. G. Silva be played off by mutual arrange- ments between the skips, before the W. V. Field end of the week.

J. Gibson

The following is the draw for C. F. Remedios next week's games:-

MONDAY, JUNE 19

At Civil Service C.C.

W. Hobby

A. A. Razack

J. S. Landolt

A. E. Coates

B. W. Bradbury

K. M. Omar

U., M. Omar

J. A. Luz

At

L. F. Xavier

F. V. Riberio

L. J. Silva

v R. S. Meadows

T. L. Lock

V W. K. Way

J. W. Leonard

v W. Ward

Kowloon C.C.

v W. J. Burling

E. Kirman

V. Chittenden v V. Petherick

At Craigengower C.C.

A. Madar

T. A. Madar

F. X. Soares

A. Steven

J. A. R. Selby

B. Basto

W. J. Howard V H. Gittins

E. W. Simmons

F. Goodwin

V

A. Calman

v J, C. Brown

At Kowloon F.C.

W. Glendenning W. Mair A. S. Russell

H. G. Cooper

H. A. Alves

P. J. Hamilton

Y E. Pope

H. W. Randall v R. Basa G. Tuck

F.-V. V. Riberio. L. R. Whant

At Kowloon D.R.C.

A. E. H. Castro A. L. Eastman V. N. Atienza v W. Grove

TUESDAY, JUNE 20

J. S. Logan

At Kowloon F.C.

J. G. Meyer

A. F. Noronha

E. Zimmern

V

M. J. Medina

F. Machado

27

A. M. Rodrigues v F. X. M. da Silva

R. Duncan

L. C. R. Souza

A. M. Holland v C. S. Roselet

At Kowloon B.G.C.

O. P. Remedios E. de Souza

T. Ferguson v W. C. Simpson

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21

W. J. Penny V A. M. Omar At Hong Kong F.C.

S. Eccleshall

V

A. W. Grimmitt

At Police R.C.

"G. S. Ladd

J. Pau

v G. E. F. Thompson

v T. W. Carr

A. Bower

V

S. Randle

H. White

C. M. Silva

At Club de Recreio

H. Overy J. Hyde E. V. Searle J. Watson

T. E. Robson N. Nish

W. Melrose

E. P. Phillips

W. Mulcahy

At Police R.C.

M. Y. Adal A. R. Dallah

J. Fraser

V

E. C. Fincher At Craigengower C.C.

L. A. Collyer F. W. Haynes

G. W. Duncan

W. McLeod W. Dall

E. G. Post

At Indian R.C.

And then Morgan acted on one of his celebrated hunches. When they re- turned to their corner he leaned over

and hissed in a friend's ear.

on

Chip belted freely, and all this time McCoy did not lay a glove on him! At last he stepped back, a little breathless from his whirlwind effort, yet ready, to go into the attack again.

For a brief second he dropped his guard and the following moments were incre- dible.

"Get down five hundred dollars McCoy to knock out Chip."

His friend thought he had lost his reason,

but went off unwillingly and bet this money-getting ten to one!

McCoy, still murmuring to himself, McCoy walked stiffly to the centre of still doubled up, drew back that lethal the ring, while Chip moved out with left hand of his, and like a striking trained ease. A long, raking left hand serpent it travelled two feet, and bit caught Al on the jaw. He took it into the champion's jaw! It was without countering, and rocked back. killing punch, carrying everything with Then he leapt back into position, his it. As he came up with the blow, Al right glove foremost, his left cocked straightened, thus giving the smash for action. (He was а southpaw). extra catapulted force. Chip hit the And did exactly nothing,

boards as if he'd been thrown from a skyscraper

Once again he was knocked back. Once again he sprang into position, his face grim, his gloves raised. And nothing happened.

The crowd began to boo, imagining that McCoy, overwhelmed by the champion's reputation, was going to lie down. Chip was obviously of the same opinion, because he stepped in and opened up a barrage of punching that drove the challenger on to the ropes and pinned him there.

Savage Assault

2

a shocked silence fell over the arena, while the referee told off the count At 'ten' Chip was still inert, and, reposing on the head of Al McCoy was the former's crown!

Bedlam broke loose. Al McCoy, just another fighter, had provided an upset of upsets, and had knocked out in forty-five seconds the middleweight king!

Yet the crowd never knew that in reality McCoy had been hypno- tised into victory. Dan Morgan had talked him into the title!

Even after, Dan gave McCoy fifteen minutes high pressure conversation be- fore a battle. And when he saw that strange expression come over Al's face, when he saw those lips start moving, he knew it was alright!

Morgan got a glimpse of McCoy's face, and he saw there was still that strained expression, the moving lips, and the far away look in the eyes. The champion's savage assault caused Al to double up on the ropes, his gloves held up, but doing no punching at all. As the jubilant Dan hustled out of Dan yelled his head off, but McCoy the dressing room, he was waylaid by appeared not to hear him, simply a bookmaker, who thrust five thou- stooping lower and catching Chip's sand dollars of notes into his hand! punishment on his head.

"And they call you Dumb, Dan!" he "My God, he's doped," thought Dan, groaned, as he tottered away. as he watched the champion use Al

(COPYRIGHT) like a punching bag, as the fans yelled To-morrow-Broadsword and Rapier. abuse at the challenger and advice to The Jewel of the Ghetto versus the the champion.

Nebraska Wild Cat.

SPORT IN ITS CRADLE

WHEN HACKING WAS LEGAL

W

IN RUGBY UNION

VHY Rugby football should have been chosen as a national game had puzzled many people. For centuries people in England played foot- ball of some sort, even if it was only a matter of kicking a ball from one end of a street to the other.

The public schools went a little further, and each built up a tradi- tional game of football, and each code was played only by boys at school, and Old Boys.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when an athletic revival took place, the game of Rugby seems to have resembled the association game, or, as it is known in Australia, Soccer. In 1823, a boy, William Webb Ellis, picked up the ball and ran with it. This changed the whole game and, although the legality of the practice was questioned, the carrying game was adopted, but not until the 'sixties was there any chance of its becoming a national game.

Bigside matches at Rugby School in the original game sometimes had 40 to 100 players on the two sides. Fierce scrummaging was the chief relaxation, and often the bulk of the players were locked together for ten minutes or longer.

It was quite immaterial if they barked their opponents' shins in this rough-and-tumble. In some schoolboy codes there was no umpire to enforce an offside rule, but the offending player had his shins hacked instead to remind him.

In 1863 a conference was formed to try to evolve some national game of football. There were two schools of thought-one which be- lieved the ball should not be touched with the hands, and the other which maintained that carrying was the essence of football.

This, however, was not what caused the split. The disruption was over what is now regarded as cowardly-hacking. In those days a man who would not give and take hacks was not regarded as being worthy of a place in the team.

It was established with the carrying game (Rugby, as it was to become) that when a man had the ball the opposition could "charge, hold, trip, or hack” him, though holding a player and hacking him at the same time was barred.

"If you do away with hacking," one exponent said, “you will take away all the courage and pluck, of the game.'

Rugby, however, abandoned the practice in 1866, and made it illegal a little later..

A. E. Carey R. Ellis

♥

W. Gill W. L. Walker J. C. Gill

P. Morgan

บ

C. C. Pereira

J. W. Macdonald

S. M. White

H. Brown

W. E. Hollands

D. Fitches

:

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 At Kowloon C.C.

W. MacCarthy

J. V. Ramsey

R. Lapsley

V

A. J. Hall

G. C. Moss

At Craigengower C.C.

J. S. Riddell

J. C Remedios

|J. C. Aitkens

J. Hoosen

v. A. R. Minu