The Boxers of Rhondda

The Rhondda Valleys have always produced hard men. The descendants of those who flocked there in the nineteenth century to work in the expanding coalfield combined to form a special kind of society, in which brawn and brain were equally respected. While the famous miners' institutes nurtured the intellect, each village also had its gymnasium and these spawned some of the fight game's most famous practitioners. Jimmy Wilde was arguably the greatest British boxer of all time, while a whole na...