UP
Army Boxing The King's Shield Trophy
The Army Inter Units Boxing Team Championship is the biggest and most demanding boxing event in the Army.
So as to have an outright winning team they had to provide 11 boxers at various weights. The Welter-weight 1st string was always last on and the decider if the teams were 5 wins each.
Bantam-weight, Feather-weight, Light weight, Light-welters weight (2nd string), Light-Welter weight (1st String), Welter weight 2nd string, Light-Middle weight, Middle weight, Light-heavy weight, Heavy-weight, Welter-weight 1st string,
Major infantry units that entered this competition aspired to win the prestigious Kings Shield and from the inception of the competition in 1914 the infantry units dominated the Inter unit Boxing Team Championship.
That is until the early 1950s when regiments like the Royal Army Ordinance Corps and the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) started to emerge as good sporting regiments.
15 Training Battalion RASC excelled in most sports, which included Boxing. They had some outstanding individual boxers and when put together in the relevant weight groups formed a formidable boxing team and when they entered the competition they won Inter Unit Team Championship and the Kings Shield trophy three years in a row 1957, 1958, 1959.
During 1960 15 Trg Bn RASC disbanded and many elements moved to 6 Trg Bn RASC in Yeovil.
Colonel (Bill) Grierson MM took over command of 6 Trg Bn in 1962 and was keen on sport. He didn't like to see the trainee soldiers going down to the local pub the "Chippies" (Carpenters Arms) with the Woman's Royal Army Corps (WRAC) girls and getting drunk. He wanted to utilise the soldiers' time better. So Physical Training (PT) was the order of the day. At around 1600 to 2000 hrs each day everyone, trainees and permanent staff officers and Non Commissioned Officers (NCO) attended sporting sessions.
Inter troop boxing, assault race, cross county race, potted sports and gymnastics were the big show of the week that was held on the Saturday morning. The inter troop boxing came up with some good boxers and it was decided to start up a new 6 Trg Bn boxing team again.
By Feb 1963 I joined 6 Trg Regt for my Driver Training and I was quickly drafted into the boxing team and During the Nineteen Sixties, 6 Training Regiment RCT managed to get close to winning the Inter unit team championship, however, were beaten in the semi finals by the Kings Regiment and the Parachute Regiment in consecutive years.
The competition for the Team Championship was that great it took over twenty years before a Corps team managed to win the trophy again.
In the Seventies 10 Regiment RCT (The Fighting Tenth) won the Kings Shield four times 1973, 74, 75 and 77. An achievement no other Regiment had been able to match.
Unfortunately, 10 Regiment RCT was barred from the competition after 1977.
In reality they were too good! The official line was that 10 Regiment's Northern Ireland tours took priority.
The Army has now downgraded the Army Inter Units Team Championships to novice boxers only and they wanted to have all units boxing on a level playing field.
I suppose that in the past, some Regiments trained their boxers to a very high level and they became top class open standard boxers; these were matched against other Regiments team boxers who were not at the same standard and the army deemed it unfair.
15 Bn RASC Boxing Championship 1955
10 Regt RCT Army Boxing
10 Regt RCT Team
10 Regt RCT Boxing 1977
10 Regt RCT Boxing 1973
10 Regt RCT Boxing 1976 1977
