reading some books on darcys career past while. one question i had for a good friend of mine...who i bow to in the area of knowledge of all things darcy....was about les's first pro fight. i accept what my friend says but still thought i'd throw it out here and see if any debate might be generated. the home before dark book states that sid pascoe was his first pro fight which i kind of agree with....i wasn't sure from what i read about it that the govern'r balsa fight should be listed on his record at all....but my darcy expert friend tells me it should. the raymond swanwick book describes the balsa fight as... a ring of "fencing wire around saplings"....near a clearing in the bush near a main road on the outskirts of town. the first book i read on darcy a while ago...spelling balsa as balser...was the ballad of les darcy and it described the scene as... "Come the afternoon of the designated Sunday in December of 1910, a line of wire was strung up around some saplings, the workers gathered and all was ready. Ding-ding, went the spanner on a tuckerbox. ROAR went the workers gathered round as the two boxers, man and boy, moved towards each other. The referee for the occasion was one of the powder monkeys, an expert in working with high explosives, which was as well, under the circumstancesÂ…" said friend suggests that a lot of fights from the era and before were conducted like this...but i still have a picture in my head of a very casual fight with little to show it should sit on his pro record. anyway. over to you lot.
The 1910 Balsa fight is accepted as Darcy's pro debut, every book confirms this. It was not held in the town of Maitland but nearby, Balsa had pro fights before, was 28 years of age, boxrec claims it was Balsa's debut though so not sure where that info came from. Swanwick's book seems a bit incomplete as there seems a few Newcastle bouts were hinted at but no names mentioned, in one he seems to have started in the semis.... Now here it gets interesting as his statue has a plaque for every Darcy fight.... there are 56 fights there making his Record 52 wins from 56 fights.... that also goes against boxrec.... most of these extra six fights are Newcastle tournament fights. The statue at East Maitland was only put up a few short years back so the 56 fights mentioned may be the result of more thorough reseach.
Another thing... the Balsa fight seems to have been very hard fought, the 14 year old winning a decision.
yes. and an 11th round called for after the scheduled 10....but you say every book confirms balsa as his pro debut....i must grab my home before dark copy and hope i read right.
this is what i picked up on...not posting this as an argument to anything you say..just showing where the seed of the question from me came from http://i.imgur.com/WMhmPPK.jpg
