Almanac Boxing – ‘Diamond in the Dust Heap’, Episode 1: Introducing Herbie

 

Herbie Barkle

 

This is the previously untold story of Herbie Barkle from Kingaroy, bantamweight boxing champion of Queensland from 1926, when he was just 19 years old, to 1929 and a contender for the national title. He was a standout professional fighter during the golden age of pugilism in Australia.

Herbie died more than 60 years ago, aged 57. He was part of a large ‘blended’ family comprising (at least) thirteen children, eleven of whom were male. (His irrepressible dad Jim, who fathered the last of them at the age of eighty, may also have been responsible for a number of illegitimate children.) Herbie himself never married and left no progeny but his memory lives on via his extended family. His boxing prowess is a source of pride for them.

Herbie was a local legend. He came from the humble surrounds of small-town Kingaroy in Queensland’s South Burnett district but he faced some of the best in Australia and prevailed.

The Australian general public has lost its fondness for the noble art of boxing despite the vast amounts of money still wagered on world title bouts and the sport’s ongoing status as an Olympic event. Grassroots sporting websites such as The Footy Almanac rarely cover boxing and the coverage we do see tends to be perfunctory. It fails to engage the heartstrings. There is little of the evocative prose of the type that surrounded the 1975 Foreman v Ali stoush, showcased in the 1996 film When We Were Kings. It gave rise to George Plimpton’s contributions to Sports Illustrated and Norman Mailer’s short story The Fight with its exploration of themes of Blackness and the Theatre of Boxing.

It was a different story a hundred years ago. In the mid-1920s ‘the fights’, along with horseracing, vied with cricket and the football codes for column inches on the back pages of Australia’s major metropolitan newspapers. Sizeable portions of their sports sections were given over to boxing. Australian boxing journalism at tha time was highly exuberant, even ostentatious.

One of the gaps in Australia’s national sporting literature is a lack of in-depth investigation of the careers and lives of our minor, and local, sporting champions. In this and the 25 episodes to follow, I aim to make a contribution towards redressing this gap. A nearly-complete composite picture of Herb Barkle’s 50-bout professional career has been built up by reviewing publicity materials, boxer profiles and fight reports published in newspapers in Brisbane, Sydney, Broken Hill and Kingaroy, paraphernalia such as Herb’s championship belt, Dad Jim’s pig-breeding trophies, an unpublished Barkle Family History book and – a particularly valuable resource – a scrapbook of Herb’s career in the ring.

The scrapbook, lovingly preserved by family members, consists mainly of faded, yellowed newspaper clippings. But it is a portal into a bygone era when fisticuffs were a rite of passage and courage in the ring was widely considered a mark of a man.

Holes in the record have been plugged using the online archive Trove, cross-referenced against the comprehensive record of bouts maintained by the website www.boxrec.com. This website seeks to accurately record details of all professional bouts in Australia in the 1920s and `30s.

The hope is that the story-telling unearthed by this research will be of interest to fans of the fistic arts and social historians alike. In the 1920s, the fights conducted at the Brisbane Stadium on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights provided a significant outlet for the male population of Brisbane, especially those who were young, single and working-class.

There were two major newspapers in Brisbane at that time, the Mail and the Brisbane Courier, which competed to provide entertaining coverage of fight nights at the Stadium. (The two newspapers merged to form The Courier Mail in 1933.) It’s possible to track the trajectory of Herb’s boxing career by combing through the sporting pages of these newspapers and the Sydney broadsheets which covered his contests there. There are promotional articles foreshadowing upcoming bouts, ‘stadium notes’ and brief reports recording winners and losers. There are also florid pieces where boxing columnists set out their opinions of particular fighters. On page after page, the newspaper accounts graphically convey the courage and devastation inherent in a fighter’s journey.

At his peak in his early twenties, Herb was a magnificent fighting machine, described by sportswriters variously as a great puncher, gallant, strong and extraordinarily tough. He also copped his fair share of criticism from the columnists, reflecting the passion of the boxing public who wagered on his fights.

Herb never fought for the Australian bantamweight championship but he was a top contender. He became a mainline favourite at Brisbane Stadium and won the regard of the fickle crowds at Leichhardt Stadium in Sydney. He was a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, a no-nonsense, walk-up knock-out artist with a hard punch in both hands. He was also a capable defensive boxer, game and hardy, known for toughing out adversity in the ring. A surviving posed studio photograph of Herb shows him confident, alert and up on the balls of his feet with the icy air of a predator.

There were two points at which he very nearly had the opportunity to fight for the national bantamweight title. The first was in July 1927 when Stan Thurbon was the Australian champion. On 8 July 1927, at Leichhardt Stadium, Herb was pitted against the popular and charismatic Sydney bantam Mickey Walker in an eliminator for a shot at Thurbon’s title. The hometown hero Walker was awarded the bout on points after 15 rounds in what was an extremely contentious decision. Seven weeks later, Walker fought the national champion but Herb’s immediate chance to win the belt was gone.

Thurbon was defeated by Archie Cowan on 22 July 1927, so Cowan became the new Australian bantamweight champion. Mickey Walker fought Cowan in Sydney on 26 August 1927 over 15 rounds and won on points although, for some reason, this was a non-title bout and Cowan retained the belt.

After redeeming himself with a points victory against Les Jackson in Sydney on 2 September 1927, Herb once again became a leading contender. Cowan was the Australian champion for most of September and Herb was contracted to go up against him for the title. It was planned that the fight would take place in Cowan’s hometown, Wollongong, late in 1927. Herb headed south to Melbourne for a warm-up fight against Jack Fitzgerald, then another against Reg Ferris. He beat them both but, in the process, sustained a hand injury. He had to return home to the family farm at Kingaroy for a recuperation and training period of a few months.

On 23 September 1927, Cowan fought the new sensation on the scene, Billy McAllister, for the national title in Sydney. McAllister was the victor on points after 15 rounds. So the Australian bantamweight belt passed to McAllister who then put paid to Walker in his next fight on 14 October 1927 (points, 15 rounds). Billy McAllister’s victory over Archie Cowan meant that Herb’s chance to fight for the Australian title evaporated as McAllister moved on to different opponents.

Herb was finally matched with Archie Cowan on 13 January 1928 in a 12-round, non-title bout in Sydney which Cowan won on points.

Towards the end of his life, Herb was a pale shadow of the formidable figure he’d been in his youth. The boxing game chewed men up and spat them out. But Herb lived out his days with the knowledge that, to paraphrase Bob Dylan’s song ‘Hurricane’, one time, he could have been the champion of Australia.

 

 

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