FRED’S GYM
THERE was a halfhour to kill between train connections at Charing Cross station. It was a sunny September afternoon, so I took a stroll along the Strand. Gazing at the city horizon, my eyes stopped at a tall imposing building. I’d seen it before, but never in living colour. Previously, it had been onedimensional – grey or sepia in the photos I’d seen – but here it was in 3D. I was staring at the rooftop of Britain’s Zimbabwean embassy. Not an obvious boxing shrine, but nonetheless a building with a rich fistic past. Back in the late 1920s, this grade Ii-listed edifice, at 429 Strand, was the HQ of Fred Dyer (real name Frederick O’dwyer), one of Britain’s top trainers.
Dyer, who was born in Cardiff to an Irish father and Welsh mother, had been a world-class welterweight. His scalps included the brilliant Panama Joe Gans and future European and British champions Gus Platts and Johnny Basham, yet Fred never won a British or world title himself. He went 20 rounds with the great Australian Les Darcy in 1914, and in 1915 was stopped in six in a challenge for Darcy’s world middleweight crown (as recognised in Australia), while giving the Aussie nine pounds in weight.
One of the most popular British fighters of his day, Dyer was known as “The Singing Boxer” for after a fight he would sing to the crowd in his rich baritone voice. He also performed on the music hall circuit, but boxing was his forte. He fought extensively in Australia and America, often tackling bigger men. He was matched in the US with reigning world welter champ Ted Kid Lewis, but Ted withdrew with an injury. Fred then chased Lewis’ successor, Jack Britton, for a title shot, but this never came.
Dyer had his last fight in 1922 and around four years later opened his gym on the top floor at 429 Strand, which at the time was the New Zealand Embassy. From here Dyer trained and managed a small pro stable that included British flyweight champ Bert Kirby and the gifted Bristol lightweight George Rose. And the gym also served as a training base for many other fighters, either based in or visiting London.
In 1929, the famous US heavy Young Stribling trained there before his first fight with Primo Carnera. The gym was also used for important weigh-ins, including the Teddy Baldock-archie Bell world bantam title fight weigh-in in 1927. Besides training fighters, Dyer also offered health treatments and was clearly broad-minded for his time. Two 1920s newsreel clips, available online, show him teaching groups of women to box.
In the summer, the top floor of the building must have felt like a furnace. So Dyer and his charges trained on the roof. The photograph on this page shows Fred and his boxers on the gym rooftop on a late 1920s summer day. In the picture are his two stars, George Rose
[back] and Bert Kirby [second from back]. When I saw the building, I thought of gaining access to the roof to take a modern photo from the same angle as this one.
But on reflection, I thought better of it. Making this spontaneous request at the Zimbabwean embassy might not be such a good idea.
Forgotten fistic shrine: the building that houses Britain’s Zimbabwean embassy has an interesting past