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Articles by James Westacott

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About James Westacott

James Westacott, a former City investment banker, acquired his love of the Noble Art as a schoolboy in the 1970s. For many years he attended boxing events in and around London and more recently became a subscriber to the Box Nation satellite/cable channel. His all-time favourite boxer is Carlos Monzon. More Posts

Emile Griffith

Many years ago I contributed to a cult boxing magazine called Round One. This led me to undertake some research into Emile Griffith for an article entitled Emile and the Defectives, a review of his lesser known contests. Griffith was chiefly famous – or infamous- for a fight with Benny Kid [...]

December 10, 2015 // 0 Comments

Keeping up with girls

A couple of weeks ago there were a number of stories in the media about a new musical – featuring choreography by Arlene Phillips – being built around the 1970s magazine for young teenage girls called Jackie. Some of you may remember it as a ‘feel good’ publication all about the latest [...]

November 14, 2015 // 0 Comments

And here’s a ‘V.A.T. on the house’ from me, Arfur …

Way back in the 1980s and early 1990s, though I never really bothered with it once Terry McCann (played by Dennis Waterman) had departed, because – well – Arfur without Terry wasn’t the same was it? – Thames Television’s series Minder was a staple of my recreational [...]

August 7, 2015 // 0 Comments

I am Ali

I have a horrible feeling that we will lose Muhammad Ali in 2015. The obit writers are going to have a problem as the word legend has been so debased that it’s devalued currency for the greatest sportsman ever. Even this does not him justice as he was the most famous American ever, the most [...]

December 28, 2014 // 0 Comments

This sporting summer

I read somewhere recently that watching three or more hours of television a day doubled someone’s risk of suffering a stroke, or of their ‘meat and two veg’ dropping off, or some similar medical horror story – which makes me slightly surprised that I’m still here at the computer keyboard [...]

June 29, 2014 // 0 Comments

Missing out (again) …

All sports fans are familiar with the influence of random chance upon sporting contests. It’s part of what makes following sport such an addictive pastime, prompting in advance endless speculation about likely outcomes – up to and including betting decisions – and, after any specific contest [...]

May 17, 2014 // 0 Comments

He Khan’t take the heat

Amir Khan – remember him, the young Pakistani from Bolton who won an Olympic silver medal at Athens in 2004 at the age of 17? – steps into the ring next weekend on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Marcos Maidana (world welterweight unification) bill. The occasion is a clash, also at [...]

April 28, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Hurricane bows out

The boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter has died aged 76. He was primarily famous for two things – in the 1960s, when I was an impressionable schoolboy who followed the Noble Art largely through the pages of Ring magazine, he was a mini-hero of mine as a sometime contender for the world [...]

April 21, 2014 // 0 Comments

Mickey Duff (1929 – 2014)

Last weekend I attended pal’s 60th birthday celebrations. In one group conversation, a fellow guest remarked about how, these days, he had noticed that news of contemporaries dying was beginning to occur with growing frequency. The following (Sunday) morning, I awoke to hear the announcement of [...]

March 24, 2014 // 0 Comments

A lady who lived life to the full

It was announced yesterday that Clarissa Dickson Wright had died, aged 66. Although I shall leave full appreciations of her life to the media obituary writers, I noted that in the piece by Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail today that – according to Who’s Who – her recreations were listed as [...]

March 18, 2014 // 0 Comments

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