John Smillie

As a youngster, John Smillie showed no leaning towards sports and games. He was more of an academic, and at school enjoyed history, geography, and science, and liked to draw for a hobby. Smillie became a miner at the age of 17 and worked at the Woodmuir Colliery, where a colleague of his was boxer Tommy Thompson who persuaded Smillie to go with him to the Fauldhouse Miners Club, and his love of boxing started. Only a few months after taking up the sport, Smillie was the flyweight runner-up in the youth section of the Eastern District of the Scottish ABA Championships.

In his first year as a senior in 1952, Smillie succeeded Thomson as National Coal Board (NCB) flyweight champion and also reached the final of the Scottish ABA Championships. It was his only defeat that year, and he subsequently went to the Helsinki Olympics as a reserve to Welshman Dai Dower.

The following year, Smillie won the British ABA bantamweight title, retained his NCB title, and then competed in the European Championships at Warszawa (Warsaw), where he lost to Ireland’s Olympic silver medallist John McNally in the quarter-final. Smillie retained his ABA, Scottish ABA, and NCB titles in 1954, and at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games at Vancouver beat Gordon Smith of Southern Rhodesia to win the gold medal.

Smillie announced his retirement after winning his Commonwealth gold, and had plans to emigrate to Australia. He changed his mind on both counts, however, and turned professional in January 1955. In 1957 he was stopped by fellow-Scot Peter Keenan for the British and Commonwealth bantamweight titles. Smillie did move to Australia in 1962 and the last eight fights of his career were all in Melbourne. When he eventually retired at the end of that year, Smillie had won 32 of his 46 professional encounters, with two drawn bouts.