BRIAN DONALD

London, 1908.

The Olympic Games.

The setting for a glorious chapter in Scottish boxing history as, one hundred years ago, a young man from Musselburgh in East Lothian defied the odds to become the first Scot to win an Olympic medal in the ring. His name? Hugh Roddin.

Born in the "Honest Toun" in 1886 to Irish Catholic parents, Roddin's first sporting love was football, but, a meeting with legendary coach Charlie Cotter, whose gym, situated at 84 Leith Street, near to today's St James's Centre, quickly convinced him that boxing was the sport for him.

Cotter's Gym attracted boxers from all social classes, professional and amateur, between 1895 and 1950, when the trainer died.

Among those who sparred or trained at the gym were Tancy Lee, Scotland's first outright Lonsdale Belt winner and Eddie Egan, the 1920 Olympic light-heavyweight gold medal winner from the US and the man who went on to rule professional boxing in New York between 1945-51 at the height of the Sugar Ray Robinson era as chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

World champions, too, trained at Cotter's, with the Cincinnati featherweight Freddie Miller and light-heavyweight Freddie Mills famous visitors.

Roddin proved to be a "natural"

at the noble art and responded in the ring to coach Cotter's expert tutelage by winning two Eastern District featherweight titles.

By April 1908, he was entered in the Scottish Amateur Championships at Glasgow's Grand Theatre, a 14-hour marathon that attracted 2000 fans to ringside.

Those present witnessed smooth boxing skills and fierce punching power from the Musselburgh man - highlighted when the cornermen of his semi-final opponent, Jimmy Strain of Partick, threw in the towel in only the second round.

In the 9st Scottish final of 1908, Roddin faced big-hitting Harry Young, also from Partick, who was a firm favourite to demolish the East Lothian man. Young had blown away Harry Millar, of the Glasgow National club, inside a round in their semi-final bout.

Roddin knocked him out in 90 seconds.

So to the London Olympics of 1908, where the boxing took place in a single day between 11.25am and 10.30pm and was contested by only four nations (not the USA).

Roddin seemed a nap selection for the Scottish games contingent, but Scottish amateur boxing officials, who were solely responsible for choosing the Olympic squad members, caused uproar in the east by selecting three Glasgow-based boxers for London while excluding Roddin.

In the resulting furore, the Scottish amateur officials relented but ordered Roddin to contest a box-off, which he duly won at Cotter's Gym against an opponent with a considerable weight advantage.

So Roddin, buoyed by the selection of his ring mentor Charlie Cotter as a coach in London, set about causing a sensation in the Northampton Institute. He duly stopped the Welsh champion in his quarter-final bout in the first round, before losing his semi-final to England's Charlie Morris.

However, the sheer power of his punching prompted another Englishman, Tommy Ringer, to withdraw from their bout for beaten semi-finalists to contest the bronze medal.

Had Roddin beaten Morris, he would have contested the featherweight title with England's Richard Gunn - the eventual winner whose record as the oldest man to win Olympic boxing gold still stands at 38 years and 242 days old.

In December 1909, Roddin, encouraged by Cotter, joined the professional ranks and ran up a five win/three losses record fighting all over Britain. He had also decided to drop a weight to bantam where he felt his punchpower would be enhanced.

In January 1911, Birmingham's Harry Thomas defeated Roddin at Leith Town Hall inside the distance. This, however, was no disgrace as Thomas was an Olympic gold medal winner.

In the same month, Roddin emigrated to New York City which, in the 1890s, boasted the "Scots-American Boxing club".

Little wonder, then, that 500 Scots emigrants to the Big Apple were reported to be at ringside when Roddin traded leather with the American Johnny Lore, whom he defeated.

The American fight manager Billy Gibson, who later guided the Irish-American Gene Tunney to the world heavyweight title in 1926, took a shine to Roddin and gave him his American ring debut in April 1911 at Gibson's Fairmount club in New York. Some debut it was too.

According to his fight record, the legendary Jewish lightweight, Benny Leonard, was knocked out in his first paid bout by one Mickey Finnegan inside two rounds in 1911. Yet, Roddin knocked out the same Mickey Finnegan in a four-round catchweight contest on the same bill.

Roddin went on to win 20 of his next 22 appearances in rings all over New York. He drew the other two.

So enchanted were hard-bitten Big Apple fight fans with the performances of the man from East Lothian that members of the Acme boxing club in the city presented Roddin with a gold watch and chain in recognition of his popularity.

It contrasts favourably with the tendency of later American boxing fans to write off subsequent British ringmen to visit the US during the greater part of the 20th century as being "Limey quitters".

During a short return home to Scotland in 1913, Roddin defeated Fred Niven from Dumfries on points in Glasgow and also drew with the Glaswegian Myer Stringer before permanently returning to New York.

His ring career did not survive the First World War, though. He lost his last contest in the US on points to the quaintly-named Young Limbo in July 1916 and subsequently served, after March 1917, in the wartime United States Army when his adopted country declared war against Germany.

From the 1920s until his death in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, where he worked for the Morgenthaler Print company, Roddin returned to his youthful love of football, promoting and running several teams in the shadow of Ebbets Field baseball ground, then home of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Although he had an extended family of relatives in the US, Roddin never married and is buried in Long Island, New York.

His memory deserves to live on, not least because this is the 100th anniversary year of his becoming the first Scot to win an Olympic boxing medal in London in 1908.

Tale of the gloves

Back in 1988, shortly after my book The Fight Game in Scotland was published here and in the US, I received a letter from Norfolk, Virginia, site of a major United States Navy base.

The letter was from a female US Navy education branch officer who was directly related to Hugh Roddin, Scotland's first winner of an Olympic boxing medal at the 1908 London Olympic Games.

She informed me that the family were all thrilled that their sporting ancestor had been rescued from obscurity by the chapter in my book.

I began a long correspondence with Harold Roddin Jr, an elderly nephew of the boxer, who owned and ran a hotel in Indian Mountain in Pennsylvania.

Subsequently, he rang to tell me that, as the result of a cross-nation telephone conference call, the US-based Roddins wanted me to have the gloves that Hugh wore at London's Northampton Institute when he won featherweight bronze in 1908.

As privileged as I am to now own these historic gloves, their fragile condition after a century has led me to keep them on display at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh's Chambers Street.