CRAFTY Belfast welterweight Charlie Rice and thunderous punching provincial and national junior champion Billy Turkington of Doagh both threw caution to the wind to produce one of the most memorable ever Ulster senior championship finals in the Ulster Hall.
The year was 1963. I was not reporting on senior boxing back then for The Irish News, but learning the trade while covering Down and Connor juvenile championships, Ulster juvenile and junior championships and County Antrim deciders.
The senior sports reporter for The Irish News was Eoin McQuillan. His summary of the Rice-Turkington war was that of a narrow victory for international Rice. Charlie was well aware of some pundits predicting the young Turk had the ammunition to knock the Holy Family fighter off his perch.
The Bedford Street emporium was packed to the rafters, huge fanatical followers of the immensely popular Turkington brothers, Henry and Billy, bussed in from Ballyclare and Doagh.
I recall going to the finals with my uncle, Hugh McGavock, once a top hurler with Cushendun, who moved from his farming enterprise at Aghadowey to take up the bar business in Belfast. He was a fanatical follower of professional featherweight ace Billy ‘Spider’ Kelly and, along with sons Alex, Hughie and Harry, followed the Derry ring genius.
All three McGavock boys took to active amateur boxing, with Alex (Holy Family) winning the 1966 Ulster senior light-heavyweight final against Jimmy Clinton-coached Russell Martin (St George’s). For the 1963 finals the McGavock boys were with me and their father, who somehow managed to obtain seats in the orchestra section of the Ulster Hall.
Still clear in my memory is the vision of Charlie Rice indulging in some showboating during the hell-for-leather action. The colourful box-fighter taunted young Turkington on one occasion, recklessly sticking out an unprotected chin and daring the stocky Turk to take a free hit.
Charlie had to endure one ferocious right hander, shook his head to indicate he wasn’t hurt, and then continued to use good combinations to keep the eager youngster at bay.
Two years after the narrow points loss Turkington, now in the Belfast Bosco colours, returned to the Ulster Hall ring and won the welterweight title, beating Coventry-based Hugh McGavock of the Edgewick Trades Hall Club.
Back to 1963 - and a second helping of Doagh versus Holy Family rivalry immediately followed the 10st 7lbs decider. The baying backers of both camps maintained the volume for the light-middleweight final, when the elder half of the ‘Doagh Destroyer’ duo clinched the title.
Heavy-handed Henry beat Holy Family’s Liam Broderick, the latter becoming a key operator for the Belfast Pearse’s Gaelic football team when winning a first Antrim senior championship in the mid-1960s. The 1963 finals also paraded a new kid on the block - 19-year-old Jim McCourt of Immaculata.
Fresh from scooping the Ulster junior, County Antrim and Irish junior featherweight championships, his senior final debut was a featherweight success against Frank McCann (Belfast Crown).
Like the Turkington brothers it was also one win for the Rice boys, as Seamus lost in the flyweight final to Seanie McCafferty (Bosco).
