Scotland’s First Olympic Medal Winner
Ask any follower of the ring to name the British boxer with the best unbeaten professional record in the United States of America and you are likely to be told Scotsman Ken Buchanan or Londoner Jack “Kid” Berg who ran up a 22 bout unbeaten streak in America between 1928 and 1930. But the honour actually goes to Hugh Roddin of Musselburgh.
He was also awarded Scotland’s first ever Olympic boxing medal – a bronze – in the 1908 Games when the East Lothian boxer’s first round K.O. of the Welsh champion at London’s Roehampton Institute in the featherweight quarter finals so scared his English semi-final opponent that he withdrew. Roddin was born in 1888 to a long established family of Irish extraction, many of whose names are commemorated on the walls of Musslelburgh’s Our Lady of Loretto Church.
He was a pupil of Charlie Cotter, the legendary boxing coach whose gym in Leith Street, Edinburgh, attracted – between 1895 and 1950 – big boxing names such as World Champion lightweights ‘Philadelphia’ Jack O’Brien, Freddie Mills and American 1920 Olympic champion Eddie Egan who later became New York State Boxing Commissioner between 1945 and 1954. Just how good Roddin was can be gleaned by the fact that, despite giving away two stones in weight to his Olympic qualifying bout opponent, the following contemporary press report noted that Roddin acquitted himself so admirably that he called forth the praise of many good judges present, one of whom declared it was the finest boxing exhibition he had witnessed in years.
Roddin, in addition to grand reach, knows how to bring the right hand into execution. They were skills that impressed Welsh featherweight “Peerless” Jim Driscoll when he witnessed Roddin box at a 1908 benefit for the Scottish lifeboat fund in Edinburgh’s Waverley Market. A veteran of American rings, Driscoll told Roddin to go there to seek his own fistic fortunes. Consequently, Roddin impressed Billy Gibson who guided boxing greats, heavyweight Gene Tunney and lightweight Benny Leonard to ring immortality. In April, 1911, Gibson put Roddin in with one Mickey Finnegan who would later stop Benny Leonard on the legendary American’s ring debut; however, it was Roddin who slipped the New York Irishman a Mickey Finn, K.O.ing his opponent inside four rounds. It was the start of a brilliant run never equalled by any British boxer fighting in America before or since, that saw Roddin win 25 consecutive bouts between April, 1911, and November, 1912, in New York.
Just how enormously popular Roddin was can be seen by an extract that appeared in 1954 in the now defunct Brooklyn News: Hughie Roddin, the great featherweight, was a real star. During a contest in Brooklyn’s Vanderbilt Club he knocked out his opponent with a crushing blow in the first round. The club owners asked Roddin if he would go in with the same opponent after a 10 minute interval, Roddin agreed and knocked the same guy out again! On another occasion, Roddin was aroused at 1 a.m. by some members of Brooklyn’s Arcanium Boxing Club asking him to box as a substitute on an early morning bill. Roddin duly obliged, and knocked out his man and was back in bed by 3:30 a.m. He was also presented with a gold watch and life membership of the Arcanium by loyal Big Apple boxing fans.
Roddin’s career in the ring ended during World War One when he served in the U.S. Army’s 35th Division. On returning he ran several youth soccer teams in Brooklyn and athletics teams based at a gym he owned there. He died in Brooklyn in 1954 and is buried at Long Island’s National Cemetery. However, the gloves with which he won Scotland’s first ever Olympic boxing medal can still be seen in Musselburgh. Roddin, Britain’s most successful boxer of all time in Yankee rings, deserves to be better remembered.
Reproduced by kind permission of Brian Donald
