Unlikely hero became the most popular Aussie boxer of all time

The most popular Australian boxer of all time was an unlikely looking hero who gave battlers a measure of hope and glory during the lean years of the Great Depression.

JEFF Horn, Jeff Fenech, Anthony Mundine, Danny Green, Lionel Rose, Les Darcy, Jimmy Carruthers.

All of them attracted huge audiences to their fights but the most popular Australian boxer of all time was an unlikely looking hero who gave battlers a measure of hope and glory during the lean years of the Great Depression.

Jack Carroll was a pasty, balding meatworker with a rough head and a powder-puff punch but Australian crowds adored him.

Writer Lou d’Alpuget, whose daughter would marry former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, said the fast moving welterweight had about as much punching power as an angry housewife, a sandy skull, lolly pink skin and an apologetic manner. He did not wear loud suits, drive flash cars, talk big or paint the town red.

Yet crowds couldn’t get enough of his ugly style and dour appearance; 30,000 turned up to the Sydney Sports Ground to see him beat American Izzy Jannazzo, another 30,000 were there to see him beat American Jimmy Leto and 25,000 more sat through pouring rain to see him bamboozle Dutch Olympic gold medallist Bep van Klavaren.

Carroll fought in Brisbane seven times between 1927 and 1936, the last time, stopping the Ipswich middleweight Sid Powell.

Jack Carroll was Australian champion for a decade

On November 8, 1936 this newspaper reported that Carroll ``delighted a packed house at the Brisbane Stadium last night with a masterly display of fast and clever boxing.’’

``The national champion fought up to his reputation as one of the world’s greatest welters,’’ The Sunday Mail reported. ``His dazzling speed made the Queenslander appear crude and ungainly, while his perfect balance and ability to punch from practically any angle astounded those who were seeing him in action for the first time.’’

Carroll’s life and career are the subject of a terrific new book ``Jack Carroll and The Rise of Australian Boxing’’ by writer and former fighter Paul Cupitt.

It traces Carroll’s career from his days as a skint preliminary boxer to his record-breaking fights with the world’s best including Australians Fred Henneberry and Ron Richards, the former Ipswich woodcutter.

Two of Carroll’s great rivals, Queensland’s Ron Richards (left) and arch enemy Fred Henneberry from Sydney

Carroll was born Arthur Hardwick in Melbourne but fought under an alias, initially to keep his career secret from his father who hated boxing.

He turned pro in 1923 and won the Australian welterweight title in 1928.

His loss to Henneberry by a 13th round stoppage in February 1932 was his last defeat. He beat Henneberry twice subsequently along with many leading welterweights and middleweights before retiring in 1938.

Carroll carved up opponents with his cutting jab the way he carved up carcasses in his day job.

Australian welterweight champion Jack Carroll (right) with Dutch opponent Bep van Klaveran, an Olympic gold medallist

He became the number one contender for New York’s world welterweight champ Barney Ross but a proposed world title fight in Sydney fell through.

Fittingly, Carroll’s last fight, a rematch against Leto at the Exhibition Building in Melbourne, set another crowd record there — 16,000.

In retirement, Carroll took a job on the Melbourne wharves and became a leading referee.

Back in 1996 when I was making a documentary about the history of Australian boxing, I sat under a tree at Dungog in the thick forest country north of Newcastle and listened as Henneberry, still lean and tough, recalled his battles with ``The Red Fox’’ 60 years earlier.

Fred reckoned Carroll slapped as often as he punched and cut opponents with the laces of his gloves.

But the Referee newspaper, reporting on their second bout which Carroll won, said that the Fox’s ``stabbing lefts flicked through his opponent’s smother like a tongue of flame through a crevice in a wall.’’

Grantlee Kieza’s biography of Lachlan Macquarie, the Father of Australia, will be published by HarperCollins/ABC Books on October 21

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