‘Scrapper’ Perry remembered for his enthralling 1950s rivalry
THE death has taken place of Harry Perry, a two-time Olympian and former European boxing championship medallist. He was 86.
From Harold’s Cross on Dublin’s southside, he was a talented allround sportsman, winning a Junior Cup medal playing out-half for Terenure College and an FAI Junior Cup medal with Rathfarnham, before concentrating on boxing. His rivalry with Olympic silver-medallist Fred Tiedt enthralled Irish boxing fans during in the latter half of the 1950s.
As a 17-year-old, Perry won the Irish featherweight title for the first time in 1952 but the IABA deemed him too young to be sent to the Helsinki Olympics. There was more controversy four years later before the Melbourne Olympics as the IABA opted to nominate Tiedt to represent Ireland in the division despite Perry defeating Tiedt in the Irish welterweight final.
Eventually there was a box-off between the pair which Tiedt won but the IABA decided that if Perry could shed sufficient weight, they would send him in the light welterweight division, where he made his Olympic debut. Though he made the weight, he lost a lot of his power and was beaten by a French opponent in his first bout in Melbourne. Meanwhile, Tiedt reached the welterweight final where he controversially lost on a split 3-2 decision by Romanian Nicolae Linca.
Showdown
Back in Ireland, the rivalry between the pair enthralled fans in the National Stadium for the next two years. Their final showdown took place there in March 1958 in the Irish welterweight final. It was their third successive clash in the decider, and having been controversially beaten in the 1957 decider, Perry won.
“We had different styles,” he later recalled. “Fred was the stylist, and I was the scrapper.”
Tiedt’s departure to the professional ranks in 1959 meant that Perry was Ireland’s undisputed top-ranked welterweight in the subsequent years. At the 1959 European boxing championships in Lucerne, he won a bronze medal.
He was forced to concede a walkover in the semi-final after injuring an ankle ligament in his bronze medal fight. He was Ireland’s leading medal hope in boxing at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. But in the first round he lost on a split 3-2 decision to Korean Kim Ki-soo, who went on to become the country’s first professional world champion in 1966.
In all, he won nine Irish titles at four different weights and was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2007.
After hanging his gloves, he became involved in coaching and administration roles within the IABA. Later in life, golf became his sporting passion and he was a former president of Delgany Golf Club.