An Irish adventure

Iemigrated from Ireland to Canada at age 17 and worked for two years in Toronto and Port Alice on Vancouver Island. Then the urge to go and see the world hit me again and so I travelled to San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji and New Zealand, where I worked six months on the Wellington docks.

Then on to Australia, where I ran out of money hitch-hiking up through Queensland. Looking for a job, I wandered into the Annual Royal Show in Townsville and found myself in the middle of a crowd surrounding a large marque

Displaying banners stating “JIMMY SHARMMAN’S BOXING AND WRESTLING TROUPE.” Several tough- looking fighters were lined up on a line-up board and a man was shouting out challenges to the crowd:

“I’m Jimmy Sharman. On behalf of the fighters and wrestlers on the lineup board I am throwing out challenges to say that there is no fighter on the showground today with the heart, pluck, courage plus the ability to stand up to a stipulated number of rounds with any athlete on the board. We will undertake to stop, knock down, make squib or give up, anyone from eight stone to one ton. Where’s all your local and district champions?”

Then two of the athletes started banking drums and ringing bells.

More of the crowd stopped and crowded in.

I moved in closer, pushed by the crowd. Then Sharman started introducing the fighters and called for challengers to stick their hands up in the crowd and he quickly matched up two fighters.

Then he held his hand up. “Look sports, we have two fighters matched up and before we go on, I want to try to match up Paul Marino, a Maori wrestling champion over from New Zealand, toughening up for the upcoming season. I find it hard to match him up because he likes to hurt people…. SOO… I’m offering a special high prize for anyone who can go three rounds with… 10 pounds. That’s a lot of money folks so let’s see a show of hands out there.”

There were no takers.

Lonely, travelling on the road I had casually had started chatting to some Aussie chaps and at this point, foolishly said something about having done some wrestling.

One of them shouted out to Sharman: “WE GOT A CHAP HERE THAT WILL KILLTHE MAORI!”

Next minute I was grabbed and shoved forward to the ladder leading up to the line-up board and they pushed me halfway up it.

Sharman leaned forward.” Where are you from son?”

“Canada, but I don’t ...”

“Look son, if the Maori gets you in a flying mare, he’ll throw you all the way back to Canada and you’ll have to cover your own medical expenses.”

Before I knew it, Sharman had hauled me all the way up onto the board and I ended up standing alongside the Maori, who glared at me.

Right then, I wished I was back in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter.

To cut a long story short, I ended up back down in the large boxing tent: Just a mat, no ropes, and with the crowd pressing in on all sides.

I’d love to have a happy ending, but the truth is that he nearly killed me.

The few tame throws I’d previously picked up, presented no difficulty to the Maori. None the less, after the bout, the crowd had somehow come to love me for my efforts and carried me off to the nearest beer tent.

Returning later to boxing tent Sharman asked me: “Would you like to do that every day?”

Flabbergasted, I blurted out, “Are you kidding? I’m a total wreck right now.”

Sharman persisted and offered me a job travelling with the troupe.

He obviously saw some potential, somewhere in me.

SOO … I ended up travelling round Australia, for three years, in three different troupes, taking on all comers at boxing and wrestling. Oh, they gave me a fighting name … Russ Savage.