Life of Les Darcy in Serial Form in Newspaper

i am fairly sure that i have posted the links on this site a couple of years ago, but i havent got time to find it again (and could be wrong as it may have been a different Darcy biography).

 

Something I have yet to read about Darcy, so I guess I will have to find it unless Chuck can provide links. I have searched through trove for very many hours and it's very hard to find a lot there.

So typical that none of the yanks here bothered to post on this thread, why are they so obsessed with just fighters from their part of the world ???

 

Just a few points, Yes Gilmore and Hawkins thought the world of Darcy, Hawkins particularly had been his mate and somewhat of a mentor since the early days when they were both still living in the coalfields town of Maitland (which is outside the coalfields but not too far away),,,, a town a few miles from a big riverport where I once had an accident when a mad truck driver thought he could squeeze past me on a one lane bridge....... I just thought I'd add that.. Hawkins was older than Les by maybe a decade but he was loyal to Darcy his whole life. Hawkins stayed on with Darcy when Darcy started training in Sydney under Dave Smith and I believe he was virtually in his corner for every fight of his career. Gilmore was an American who Darcy hired as a sparring partner and it seems they became best mates quickly and one of very few Americans he met that he trusted on that trip.

Darcy sure did make a mistake but we are looking at this in hindsight, to many Australians the war looked like it would never end and I assure you that it is a fact that the Prime minister was determined to make an example of Darcy and because Wilson had always wanted to join the war Hughes was suddenly a man of some influence and Wilson seems to have tried to please him... it is clear from the negative press that there was a smear campaign and only some of it was from Hughes... Hugh D McIntosh and Snowy Baker are the real ones to put blame on... they were not politicians but they were out for their pound of flesh especially when Darcy did not fight Chip that second time (of course he didn't run from Chip scared as he had destroyed Chip in that last fight)...... All McIntosh and Baker had to do was put a bit of money in some ex opponents pockets of Darcy and in some pockets of some american journalists and they can get Darcy sounding like the most horrible rotten scoundrel of all time... something a poster here has tried to do.... (for no money at all... wrong century wrong decade lol).... I know this is true and from reading some of the negative stuff ex opponents said about Darcy in direct contradiction to everything they had said before backs this up... plus we have so many statements by butthurt McIntosh and Baker as well....... Baker tried to attend Darcy's final funeral in Maitland (there had been three already.. Memphis, San Francisco and Sydney) but Jimmy Clabby that excellent american fighter and friend of Darcy saw Baker in Maitland and told Snowy that he just had to leave town because there were many people who wanted to hurt him. I don't think Baker was a lowlife, the fact he went to attend the funeral and had shown remorse shows he was a reasonable fellow but try telling that to the Maitlander's back then.

Darcy had said many times he would join the army but as he was under 21 he needed a parents signature... I think he had tried twice but his mother refused... many mothers did, as you know it was the worst war of all time. Darcy had told the newspapers often though that he wanted to have a few big money fights before being sent to probable death... on poster in here scoffed at Darcy joining the Memphis Army air corps (or whatever it was called)....... funny about that as during WWI pilots had a life expectancy of less than an hour and Darcy had begun to like the idea of flying....... anyway, the idea that you would send your nation's biggest sporting hero to just die is just horrendous... even Ali was never going to be risked in a front line and he knew that but as I said before in another thread Australia's government sent every one of our big stars to the front lines..... dozens of top Sydney rugby league players never came back and quite a few test and first class cricketers... in the end of the day Darcy worried about his family first, he was not poor anymore but still with a drunken useless father and at least one crippled sibling and many youngsters they were not out of trouble just yet... as it turned out the family was cursed... Les died in Memphis in 1917 and his younger brother Frank "Frosty" Darcy who was beginning to show talent as a boxer suddenly died in 1919.... It just wasn't meant to ne.

If he had lived and survived the war there can be little doubt that his exploits would have been twice as legendary than they were already. There does not seem to be many fighters who had a hope of beating him.... Greb was not ready yet and maybe even in his prime we can only guess who would win and to me that depends on if the fight was 12 rounds or less or 15 or 20... I do not see Greb beating him over 15 or 20 rounds but he may survive 12 or 10 to win on points and if its a ND bout then we would not learn a thing as there would be no result... same goes for Mike Gibbons... it's possible he could outpoint Darcy in 10 or 12 but I doubt that he would, I see Darcy walking right through him and blasting him into next year. Neither Gibbons or Greb had the power to knock Darcy out so points is their only option yet darcy was a great fighter over the distance and hard to outbox..... Even if he lost to Greb he is going to annihilate just about anyone they put in front of him... even a young Tunney. Darcy wanted to fight the heavyweights and may have fought Dempsey but Dempsey is too big and if I don't think Greb has a chance against Dempsey I have to say Dempsey should win... Dempsey himself said years later he was too big for Darcy as well...... anyway as we saw with Greb, a middleweight getting a shot at Dempsey has many hurdles and may not have happened... Darcy though was like Greb, happy to fight anyone and he would not have shied away from fighting Wills and I think he would have had a huge chance at beating Wills who from film I have seen was no behemoth and had rather thin arms for a heavyweight. In short I am sure Darcy would be in all the Top 10 or 20 p4p lists today and ranked in top 3 or 4 middleweights to ever live....... there was no indication that he had any weaknesses or flaws, maybe someone could have found a flaw and used that to win but it wasn't exactly a time of TV replays and video so other fighters would not be able to study him closely unless they were ringside.

 

I do not expect everyone to hold the same opinion of how Darcy would have gone in those particular matchups but I have little doubt he would have won nearly every fight unless he went on fighting way past his prime

 

Unfortunately, I really can't contribute to this discussion because I know virtually nothing about Darcy but I do find this thread extremely interesting,

 

I am now fairly sure that it was a different series of articles to what i posted, although it could have been one of the ones that was deleted back when the first Great Darcy internet pub brawl started.

Still here is a link to a couple of articles which you can trace back to newspaper series, if they are of any interest:

the first article talks about when a young les darcy caught Sam Langford by surprise.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/183022109?searchTerm=darcy emery&searchLimits=sortby

Here is no 6 in a series published in 1935/36. I think it might have been monthly rather than weekly.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189133037?searchTerm=darcy emery&searchLimits=sortby

 

Why would having the press present when he arrives need any other reason than to promote his hopes for good fights ? He was big news because he was the hottest new young fighter in the world. I do not see anything sinister in his intentions and neither should you. In the beginning the press was great but they turned on him in a big way, some of it was pure vilification and fabricated lies, though not all the press hated him, some were sympathetic and the rest were just doing what they always do.. being fickle and doing whatever they think will sell more copies. Here was this brilliant almost unbeatable fighter and suddenly there were reports originating from home that Darcy was apparently a no good SOB which you know is not true, everybody knows he was a great gentle and polite young man except inside the ropes.

 

Yep, total tragedy and proof that this poor family were meant to suffer, if there is a god it's a rather cruel and heartless one.

 

These are great articles and the fight reports are authentic and rare, so rare it's the first time I have read them. I edited and fixed the computerized text on the articles so anyone who checks the links out will now have the proper wording in the text to the left of the photocopies. I copied and pasted these on my boxing page on facebook but won't paste a link to it here because I don't want any of the trolls we sometimes get here trolling my page although I could easily delete them I suppose.

Hey Boiler I cannot seem to find any more of this series of articles, can you please provide more... The report of the controversial first fight between Jeff Smith and Les Darcy finally will put an end to arguments about what happened, it is also a great back up as proof to the report our Senya has on his web page. Darcy was not stopped, he was hurt, it surely had to be a low blow to do that and Darcy refused to stop and fought on, the pain was not lasting and he was fine to fight on and I am sure Smith would have copped a loss here BUT the report shows Smith to be a great fighter and had to be to "cut Harry Greb to pieces" as one fight report stated. Smith asked the referee for Darcy to be disqualified and that was the referees decision, Dave Smith had no right to throw a tantrum and throw a towel in at the end of the round and it's probably why when Darcy did end up fighting Dave Smith that he gave Dave such a terrible hiding and KO's him in both fights. Darcy had been hurt but NEVER WENT DOWN like the haters have claimed and he fought on, The article made the mistake of calling it a TKO... it was a DQ that night and has remained officailly so ever since.

The report also shows this was one of the truly great fights in history, a very exciting encounter and Darcy fought a great fight here and had Smith fighting desperately... the blow most likely was an accidental blow and probably because Darcy deflected and redirected the blow I would add as a guess. Senya's copy of the other report I have seen says there was a dented cup but no mention of it here but we know Darcy always said it was dented and seems to be a fact. If anyone ever finds the film of this we will get to see a fantastic fight indeed as both men were quite brilliant on the night.