South Yorkshire Times October 25, 1947

Goldthorpe Dentist Hailed Billy in the Ring

I went over to Liverpool for last week’s lightweight title fight, with four Dearne boxing enthusiast – one of them our own “Ringside,” Mr S H Platts, late of Highgate colliery, who was seeing the last big fight in this country before leaving for the States and had, as he told me, the grandest send off he could have had.

Another was Mr H Rothnie, Goldthorpe dentist (who nearly lost his voice! ) was right among the enthusiastic crowd who mobbed Billy Thompson with their congratulations in the ring immediately after the fight. It was a great night for all of us.

We bumped into Ron Fisher, Wilf Robinson, of Hickleton Main boys club, outside the stadium before the fight. Other parties had gone over from South Yorkshire, and if there were not as many as there were when Billy met Hawthorne for the Northern Area title a year ago, you would never have known from the roar that greeted him, as bronzed, even under the art lights, and looking fitter than ever I have seen him.

He dropped into the ring with a friendly greeting for Hawthorne just before the fight. It was typical of Billy to hand a bouquet to Henry Hall (picture), the Sheffield welterweight, always very popular and well-known in this corner South Yorkshire.

In training with Billy, Henry had been a “ghost Hawthorne” adopting the northerner stance and tactics – and that it paid dividends was only too obvious.

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