THERE is a protracted custom of top-flight boxers turning into referees after retirement. Being the third man within the ring will not be a place that may swimsuit everyone, however ex-fighters, having been there themselves, notably at championship degree, have greater than most to supply on the subject of expertise and competence in what typically is a difficult function.
Jack Hart, Johnny Summers and Jim Kenrick are all good examples of this again within the Twenties, and Jimmy Wilde was a succesful and highly regarded ref a decade later. The custom continued after the struggle when Tommy Little, Benny Caplan, Ike Powell and Eugene Henderson carried the flag. In 2019 I produced an article on Wally Thom, an excellent referee all through the Nineteen Seventies, and the British welterweight champion in the course of the Fifties, and now I want to pay tribute to a different from the identical period who adopted this route, Croydon’s Mark Hart.
Mark was a part of a bunch of boxers from Croydon who made an actual influence on the home scene within the early Fifties, the others being Pat Stribling, Ron Pudney and Albert Finch. All 4 boxed at both middleweight or light-heavy and, little question, they’d have often sparred one another. Stribling was managed by Tom Fisher, a Croydon man, whose steady was full of native lads. Each Pudney and Finch went with Jack Burns, and Mark was managed by John Harding, the ex-manager of the Nationwide Sporting Membership.
An excellent newbie, Mark gained the 1944 ABA heavyweight title, and the next yr he turned skilled. After beginning out as a heavyweight, his coach, Jack Hyams, determined that he would make a greater middleweight and slowly diminished his measurement. This made him right into a formidable and highly effective challenger on the new weight. By 1947 he was the South-Jap space champion and was adequate to share the ring with each Dick and Randolph Turpin (with whom he shared a six-round draw), Albert Finch and Don Cockell.
By 1949, after switching weights once more, he was the primary challenger for the British light-heavyweight title, having beforehand earned the identical place at middleweight, and, after profitable 36 of his 47 contests he was matched towards Reg Spring of Southall for the South-Jap space light-heavyweight title.
This bout occurred on the Royal Albert Corridor and Mark punched his option to a transparent 12-round factors victory. After a shaky begin to 1950, when he gained solely two of his first 4 contests, he outpointed Dennis Powell in a British title eliminator and this earned him the suitable to fulfill Don Cockell once more, this time for the British title. In an ideal struggle at Harringay Area, Mark was knocked out within the 14th spherical. As there was a printer’s strike on on the time, BN sadly didn’t carry a report of this contest. Mark had 5 extra contests, with three wins, earlier than he hung up his gloves in 1953.
All through many of the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, BN didn’t routinely present the title of the referee for the contests that it reported upon. That is normal observe in the present day and has been for over 50 years. It’s fairly tough, subsequently, to offer a lot in the best way of element about Mark’s early profession as a referee, however he was definitely performing as third man by the mid-Nineteen Sixties and he was a daily all through Southern space rings in the course of the Nineteen Seventies.
He by no means achieved ‘star’ standing, however he was adequate to referee the 12-rounder between Charlie Nash and Jimmy Revie on the World Sporting Membership in 1976. I additionally keep in mind Mark in command of the Randy Neumann and Billy Aird bout in 1975, the nine-rounder between Paddy Maguire and John Kellie the next yr and Jimmy Batten towards Trevor Francis in 1977. He packed in as a referee in 1979 after which grew to become a well-liked member of the very lively Croydon Ex-Boxers Affiliation, the place he’s nonetheless remembered. He died in 2004.
