New Freddie Welsh book
Posted: 09 Apr 2007, 14:58
Saturday this week sees the launch of Occupation: Prizefighter on the night Joe Calzaghe fights Peter Manfredo at the Millennium Stadium.
The book about early 20th century Welsh boxer Freddie Welsh, pound for pound one of the best fighters in history, has been written by Andrew Gallimore, who was educated at UCW Cardiff and the University of Oxford. At the launch he will be showing archive fight footage of Welsh fighting around 1915.
Having left the industrial town of Pontypridd for a new life in America, the young Frederick Hall Thomas reinvented himself as Freddie Welsh: pugilist, writer, vegetarian, philosopher, American, Welshman.
When he began his boxing career in Philadelphia, a fight crowd was typically rowdy blue-collar workers in the gallery with the politicians, gangsters, businessmen and blue bloods at ringside. Freddie played a major role in making the sport respectable and the big fights became a place for the middle-classes to be seen.
His was an outstanding record and, with his sharp business sense and regular earning, Welsh was one of the first boxers to turn drama in the ring into cash outside it. He made his home in New York where he became a celebrity, mixing with actors, playwrights and gangsters.
The paradoxes in his life were enormous: He appears in The Great Gatsby and in the writing of Ring Lardner, he took on the aristocrat-led boxing establishment in Britain, at the same time he endured and succeeded in the brutal world that was boxing at that time.
It was a way of life that was difficult even for wealthy men to sustain, and as his ring career faded away, so did his money through bad investments and bad company.
He hunted down the champions of the day and relieved them of their titles, his career culminating with the World Championship in front of thousands of Welshmen at the Olympia Theatre in London. Little could these men have imagined that the next time the vast majority of them would leave Wales would be for the trenches of the Somme, Mametz and Ypres.
By the time hostilities had ceased in Europe, Freddie was a man of means in New York, with the most fashionable friends in the most fashionable city on earth. He had the charm, notoriety and good manners to enjoy a lavish lifestyle with the smart set. He dined with actors and playwrights and sparred with the leading chronicler of the times, F. Scott Fitzgerald. But it was a way of life that was difficult even for wealthy men to sustain. As his career in the ring faded away, so did his money, his family and his health.
Occupation: Prizefighter uses forensically detailed research and a quicksilver narrative to portray the life and times of a seminal figure in a period of sports history that is little known and even less understood.
It is also casts new light on one of the most important literary creations of the twentieth century and concludes that Freddie Welsh was, in large part, the real Great Gatsby.
Tough fights, big money, seedy associates: this is the story of an extraordinary man who led a remarkable life. Wonderfully detailed and sourced, with many direct quotes from Freddie's own writings and from contemporary accounts, Occupation: Prizefighter is a must read for anyone interested in boxing history.
For further information please contact Simon Hicks at [email protected] or phone 01656 663018
The book about early 20th century Welsh boxer Freddie Welsh, pound for pound one of the best fighters in history, has been written by Andrew Gallimore, who was educated at UCW Cardiff and the University of Oxford. At the launch he will be showing archive fight footage of Welsh fighting around 1915.
Having left the industrial town of Pontypridd for a new life in America, the young Frederick Hall Thomas reinvented himself as Freddie Welsh: pugilist, writer, vegetarian, philosopher, American, Welshman.
When he began his boxing career in Philadelphia, a fight crowd was typically rowdy blue-collar workers in the gallery with the politicians, gangsters, businessmen and blue bloods at ringside. Freddie played a major role in making the sport respectable and the big fights became a place for the middle-classes to be seen.
His was an outstanding record and, with his sharp business sense and regular earning, Welsh was one of the first boxers to turn drama in the ring into cash outside it. He made his home in New York where he became a celebrity, mixing with actors, playwrights and gangsters.
The paradoxes in his life were enormous: He appears in The Great Gatsby and in the writing of Ring Lardner, he took on the aristocrat-led boxing establishment in Britain, at the same time he endured and succeeded in the brutal world that was boxing at that time.
It was a way of life that was difficult even for wealthy men to sustain, and as his ring career faded away, so did his money through bad investments and bad company.
He hunted down the champions of the day and relieved them of their titles, his career culminating with the World Championship in front of thousands of Welshmen at the Olympia Theatre in London. Little could these men have imagined that the next time the vast majority of them would leave Wales would be for the trenches of the Somme, Mametz and Ypres.
By the time hostilities had ceased in Europe, Freddie was a man of means in New York, with the most fashionable friends in the most fashionable city on earth. He had the charm, notoriety and good manners to enjoy a lavish lifestyle with the smart set. He dined with actors and playwrights and sparred with the leading chronicler of the times, F. Scott Fitzgerald. But it was a way of life that was difficult even for wealthy men to sustain. As his career in the ring faded away, so did his money, his family and his health.
Occupation: Prizefighter uses forensically detailed research and a quicksilver narrative to portray the life and times of a seminal figure in a period of sports history that is little known and even less understood.
It is also casts new light on one of the most important literary creations of the twentieth century and concludes that Freddie Welsh was, in large part, the real Great Gatsby.
Tough fights, big money, seedy associates: this is the story of an extraordinary man who led a remarkable life. Wonderfully detailed and sourced, with many direct quotes from Freddie's own writings and from contemporary accounts, Occupation: Prizefighter is a must read for anyone interested in boxing history.
For further information please contact Simon Hicks at [email protected] or phone 01656 663018