“Outstanding Service”
On Friday February 23 1973 British boxing’s trade paper, Boxing News trumpeted “SOLLAS MAKES DAZZLING DEBUT”. The impressed “Boxing News” reporter at London’s famous Albert Hall venue then told the readers – while describing Edinburgh featherweight, Vernon Sollas’s pro debut fifth round stoppage win over Irishman John O’Rawe- “Sollas had won every round dazzling O’Rawe with flashy combinations…”
Similarly in previewing Sollas’s fight with Wolverhampton’s Billy Belnavis (again at London’s Albert Hall) Boxing News opined “Brilliant Scottish featherweight, Vernon Sollas… has the class stamps him a future champion… He (Vernon) looked good in knocking out capable Welshman in seven rounds in the last Albert Hall show… he is likely to find Sollas too fast and hard hitting…”
Praise indeed for a kid who was then only 18 going on 19 years old when these glowing testimonials were penned by a not easily impressed Boxing News journalist but then Vernon Sollas was not compared to Muhammad Ali foe nothing by his legendary trainer and former British featheweight champion also from Edinburgh, Bobby Neill, for nothing.
However, everyone’s personal history has a starting point and the young Vernon- whom Bobby Neill compared to Ali was born in Edinburgh on August 14 1954 to a Jamaican father, also called Vernon and an Italian mother called Elizabeth whom Vernon always reckoned he owed a lot to. Boxing was in the younger Sollas’ s genes for Dad Vernon Senior had fought all over the country in the 1940′s and early 50′s a pro also but even Sollas senior would concede that he wasn’t as naturally gifted as a ring artist as his son. Besides, from an early age Sollas the younger had the same brash, outspoken “I am the greatest” persona as Muhammad Ali and like Ali he could back it up at school where he earned a reputation as a scrapper, on the street or in the ring.
So soon Vernon enrolled in Edinburgh’s Madison amateur boxing club where former altar boy turned ferocious fighting bantmaweight Eddie Carson ran the club in a basement in the capital’s Grove Street. Not even Eddie Carson’s most ardent admirer would have called the tough ex-sailor nicknamed “Napoleon” a beautiful boxer but it is to Carson’s undying credit that he gave young Vernon all the freedom to develop his brilliant “anything you can do in the ring I can do better style” and soon the brash kid was the tallk of the town for his amateur exploits.
For example, Joe Fortune, veteran club coach at the Leith Victoria, who worked with current W.B.O. Superfeatherweight champion, Alex Arthur when the latter was an amateur opined “Young Vernon Sollas was utterly brililant as an amateur-he could box, counterpunch, block, move in great style” Why then did rising amateur star, Sollas not box for Britain in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich? – especially as his pro manager, Bobby Neill claimed in a 1973 interview “Vernon has the speed of hand and foot of Muhammad Ali …he is a more complete boxer than Ali and Sollas can punch hard which Ali couldn’t…”
The answer was amateur boxing politics.
Although beaten by England’s Billy Taylor in a Scotland v England international match in early 1972, Vernon Sollas thought that he had won. Besides, Vernon had beaten the same Taylor in an Olympic trial which should have guaranteed his place in Munich, but Taylor was selected instead prompting the Edinburgh boxer to join forces with 1960 vintage British featherweight champion, Bobby Neil whose coaching genius would help Alan Minter and Lloyd Honeyghan to world titles in the 1980′s and guide Welsh born Liverpudlian bantam, Alan Rudkin to the brink of world title greateness.
So it was that the 18 year old Sollas was convinced, cajoled and cultivated twowards similar hope for ring glory by Neill at the “Butcher’s Arms” Kings Cross gym. But with the benefit of hindsight even in those generally glorious early pro years the curse of inconsistent ring performances was to surface.
For example, while stopping Wolverhampton’s Billy Belnavis in eight rounds “Boxing News” headlined “Sollas Fails to Sparkle” observing “Sollas dominated but was far from impressive against an awkward, evasive opponent…” Yet a month later the same source hailed Vernon’s massively impressive defeat of Frenchman Albert Arnatler -stopped in six rounds, thus…”SPARKLING SOLLAS SLAMS FRENCHMAN” adding “Classy former Scottish international, Vernon Sollas stole the supporting show with an impressive sixth round battering of Frenchman Albert Amatler…Sollas, meeting his first continental opponent, produced skillfull moves. He cheekily switched to southpaw in the first round and hit Amateur…”
Yet two months later, in July 1973 at London’s Earl Court Solas’s trademark cockiness and Ali like ring confidence rebounded with a vengeance when (ahead by the proverbial mile on points againsy Jarrow’s cagey George McGurk) Vernon was stopped in the sixth round when he dropped his hands and taunted the Englishman (who outweighed Sollas by seven pounds) only to be stopped with a crashing right hand. This hapened just four weeks after Sollas had given another dazzling display at the Royal Albert Hall stopping old amateur opponent, Mickey Piner in six, a great way to celebrate his wife, Moira, presenting the rising ring star with a daughter, Liza.
So inconsistency and unpredicabilty increasingly became factors raising questions that perhaps the brilliant young man from Edinburgh was, perhaps a flawed genius.
For example, most pundits installed Sollas a huge favourite to beat fellow Scot from Tarbolton, Ayrshire, Evan Armstrong when the pair clashed at London’s Manor Baths in June 1974 and for the first part of the contest Sollas dazzled and outboxed the tough Ayrshire man -only to fade alarmngly after the fifth before being knocked out in the eighth round.
Yet once again after stopping teak tough Yorkshireman, Alan Richardson in February 1975 and knocking out Jimmy Revie in four, at his old Albert Hall stomping ground, to become the fourth native of Edinburgh to win both the British featherweight title and the Lonsdale Belt, it seemed as though Vernon Sollas had confounded his critics who questioned his stamina and his inconsistent performances, which ranged from the utterly magical to the mediocre and disappointing.
Former Boxing News Editor, the late Harry Mullan was clealry thinking of this when he headed a preview of Vernon Sollas’s European title scrap with allegedly light punching Spaniard Elio Cotena, “SOLLAS SHOULD WIN-IF HE DOESN’T FADE IN LATER ROUNDS.” Despite Mickey Duff providing Edinburgh’s Vernon with the pre-fight incentive of a possible world featherweight fight against Ghana’s then world featheweight champion Dave ”Poison” Kotey in London, Sollas not only failed to produce his known dazzling skills but was knocked out by the allegedly light “hitting” Spaniard.
Of course, we now know that the briliant young boxing prospect from Edinburgh that was Vernon Sollas, was increasingly suffering from a stamina sapping condition which undermined Sollas’s abilty to fulfil his world class boxing potential, as surely as arthritis in the hands routinely ruins the careers of eminent surgeons and musicians. So it was that Vernon Sollas’s last great ring performance took place in London’s National Sporting Club in Mayfair when the Edinburgh ring ace knocked out South African world featherweight champion, Arnold Taylor in round eight with Vernon claiming that pringbok Taylor was the hardest puncher he ever faced in the ring.
After that the Sollas career was anti-climatic.
In what proved to be his second last fight, Yorkshire’s Alan Richardson ko’d Vernon in 8 rounds to relieve him off his British 9 stone title and Lonsdale Belt at Leeds Town Hall, and after losing to England’s Dave Needham at Wolverhasmpton later that year of 1977, Vernon Sollas retired. Vernon Sollas was (when at his best) easily one of the most brilliant Caledonian ring talents ever, but genius often comes with a heavy price tag for those endowed with it, (witness Scottish sporting greats Benny Lynch and Jim Baxter) for Vernon it wasn’t booze that muddied the dream but a physical stamina problem that prevented him from being what many thought he was destined to be become – the Scottish Ali.
Brian Donald
