MORE knockout memories of South Hams' proud pugilism past have been evoked by an ex-boxer from the district, who was fired up by our summer boxing coverage.

Tony Rogers wrote to us with his recollections of the area's fighting heyday after reading with great interest our articles on Kingsbridge's current boxer Ed Hall and his meeting with the man who founded the town's former boxing club, Bill Burgoyne.

On Friday, June 24, we reported on 24-year-old Hall's joy at winning his first-ever bout for Saltash Amateur Boxing Club.

While understandably ecstatic about his success, Hall had one slight regret – that he had not actually been flying the flag for his hometown.

The Kingsbridge Amateur Boxing Club folded in 1974 but the man who founded it in 1948, Burgoyne, contacted South Hams Newspapers after reading with interest Hall's exploits.

The sprightly nonagenarian told us he was eager to speak to Kingsbridge's new king of the ring – and we were only too happy to arrange for the pair to meet at 91-year-old Burgoyne's idyllically situated Warren Road home at the end of July.

This month, Mr Rogers contacted us after reading the articles and was keen to regale us and our readers with more memories of the halcyon days of boxing in the South Hams.

Rogers, who is now 73 and lives in Derbyshire, said he joined the club in his mid-teens after his interest in the sport was kindled while living in London. He explained: 'Due to a personal injury to my father, who was a farmer, we moved from Cornwall to Manor House, London, with people who were evacuated during the war. This enabled my father to have total convalescence for a year.

'My first day at school was at a secondary modern school at Finsbury Park and, while in the playground that morning, a band of admirers had encircled a lad of about 14. I found out that he had just won the schoolboys' boxing championship and decided that I wanted some of that – and by 'that', I mean the admiration.'

He went on: 'I didn't take up boxing in London, but moved back to Devon. While living in a council house in Jubilee Road, Malborough, another lad living in Jubilee Road was boxing under the street lamps one evening and encouraged me to have a go.  That is how my total of 167 bouts started. The other lad, who was already a member of the KADABC, was a hard-punching lightweight called Peter (Sugar Ray) Rae.'

Rogers was further inspired to carve out a career in the ring for himself by the feats of town boxer John Cope, who went on to win the Western Counties' light welterweight championship.

He explained: 'His brother Peter Cope had many more contests than John but never, to my memory, won a championship. Peter was a real crowd-pleaser, though, and one of the most durable middleweights that you would ever have the pleasure of seeing.

'The other boxers to win titles from the Kingsbridge and District Amateur Boxing Club were Michael Westlake, who became the flyweight champion of the Western Counties, and myself, who became the youngest boxer from Kingsbridge to win the welterweight championship of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall. Shortly after becoming Three Counties Champion, I was selected to box for Devon against the Royal Navy at HMS Drake in Plymouth, boxing a sailor from the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose. Fortunately, I knocked him out in the second round.'

Rogers remembers the old town hall in Kingsbridge being transformed into a true Mecca of boxing in the South Hams.

He said: 'The club used to put on its own boxing show at the town hall twice a year and provided enough boxers to fill one half of the programme.

'The town hall on a Saturday night used to be packed to the rafters. There were epic battles that are still talked about between Peter Cope and Roy Roberts and Mel Dixon from Kingsbridge, who had a devastating punch, versus Dave Stacey of Torbay.'

He went on: 'It is difficult to talk about myself, but my own contests against Dicky Damerell, the schoolboy champion of Great Britain, and the contest I had with Georgie Bray, the army cadet force champion of Great Britain, are still talked about. The club at one time had seven sets of twins in it. The training quarters were eventually moved just up the road in Union Road above the Burgoyne's transport garage.

'I suppose the greatest achievement to come out of such a small club was when Ronnie Broad and myself got through the army finals at Woolwich in 1957. Ronnie boxed Johnny Prescott for the light heavyweight title and I boxed Brian Nan-Curvis for the army welterweight title. Johnny eventually turned pro and boxed Billy Walker for the British heavyweight title. Johnny's contest with Billy Walker drew huge TV audiences.

'Shortly after, my bout with Brian Nan-Curvis, Brian also turned pro, becoming the British and Empire welterweight champion.

'He then fought Emile Griffiths, under the name of Brian Curvis, for the world title. Shortly afterwards, Ronnie Broad was selected to box for England as a light heavyweight and the only boxer from the club to be selected to box for his country.'

While it was understandably the boxers who attracted the limelight, he was keen to stress none of their achievements would have been possible without the 'backroom boys' such as timekeeper Edward Cope and trainers Bill Williams and Harold Prowse.

He added: 'Then, of course, you had those who acted as seconds, and in team tournaments the ones I remember, of course, were Harold Prowse and Donald Rowe.

'Donald Rowe was the father of two of our boxers, John Rowe, who now lives in Australia, and Barry Rowe, who still lives in South Devon somewhere.'

The town's former fighting hero quipped that, if someone were to start an over-60s boxing club in the town, he would 'join tomorrow'.

But for the present, he has to make do with a glut of glorious memories of the past, while hoping that current boxer Ed Hall can create his own legacy in the sport in the future when he joins the army next year.