Dave Sands - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dave Sands, born David Ritchie, (4 February 1926 – 11 August 1952) was an Australian Aborigine boxer. He established himself as a leading contender for the World Middleweight

Middleweight

Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1897...

Title, only to die prematurely in a motor vehicle accident at the age of 26.

Career

Born into the Dunghutti

Dunghutti

The Dunghutti are the indigenous Australian people from around Kempsey, New South Wales.Boxer Dave Sands was a Dunghutti....

tribe at Burnt Bridge, near Kempsey

Kempsey

There are at least two towns by the name of Kempsey:* Kempsey, New South Wales, in Australia* Kempsey, Worcestershire, in England...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Sands was a natural middleweight in size but he was a good enough fighter against heavier opponents to snare the Australian Light-Heavyweight and Australian Heavyweight

Heavyweight

Heavyweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Fighters who weigh over 200 pounds are considered heavyweights by the major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, and the World Boxing...

Championship titles as well. He was also an Empire

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

Middleweight Champion, winning the title from Randy Turpin

Randy Turpin

Randolph Adolphus Turpin known as the Leamington Larruper, was an English boxer who was considered by some to be Europe's best middleweight boxer of the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...

's brother Dick (see below) in 1949.

Sands and his predecessor Les Darcy

Les Darcy

James Leslie Darcy was an Australian boxer. He was a middleweight, but held the Australian Heavyweight Championship title at the same time....

are considered by many sporting commentators to have been the two outstanding middleweight boxers in Australian pugilistic history, with both proving themselves capable of defeating opponents of true international calibre. They also both died very young. Death came to Sands at the age of 26, when he was killed in a truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

roll-over near the country town of Dungog, New South Wales. At the time, he was ranked the number-three middleweight

Middleweight

contender in the world, behind the reigning champion Sugar Ray Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson was an African-American professional boxer. Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson's performances in the welterweight and middleweight divisions prompted sportswriters to create "pound for pound" rankings, where they compared fighters regardless of weight...

.

The future Australian champion formed part of a large family of timber-cutters and professional boxers that all took the name "Sands" as their ring name. There were six brothers of whom Dave was the fourth. He also had a nephew who later became an Australian welterweight

Welterweight

Welterweight is a weight class division in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like kickboxing, taekwondo and mixed martial arts also began to use it for their own weight division system...

champion.

Once referred to as "Australia's dapper, dark-skinned, dreamy-eyed boxing enigma", Sands was trained by Tom Maguire.

Having established his dominance in local boxing rings during the immediate post-war years, and capturing the Australian middleweight crown in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

in 1946, he travelled overseas in search of top-class competition and a possible world's championship belt. In 1949, he trounced Dick Turpin

Dick Turpin (boxer)

Dick Turpin, was an English middleweight boxer. He was British and Commonwealth middleweight champion, reputedly being the first black fighter to win a British boxing title...

in 165 seconds to win the British Empire title. The bout was considered one of the most sensational ever seen in Great Britain. Following the contest, the referee congratulated Sands, saying: "Good fight, son, but give me something to do next time."

Sands further underscored his ability as a strong punching and well balanced boxer-fighter by twice beating a future World Middleweight Champion, America's Carl Bobo Olson

Bobo Olson

Carl Olson was an American boxer. He was the world middleweight champion between October 1953 and December 1955, the longest reign of any champion in that division during the 1950s, although he is probably best remembered for his three knockout losses against Sugar Ray Robinson.His nickname, Bobo,...

— firstly in Sydney in 1950 and then in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

in 1951.

Unfortunately for Sands' ambitions to reach the acme of his profession, he competed at a time when the international middleweight division was studded with talent, and securing title bouts or elimination showdowns with leading contenders in America was not easy. He was a shy man, too, who was not always able to deal comfortably with the media spotlight and blare of public adulation that he was subjected to during the years of his athletic prime. For example, following his 1949 win over Turpin, he was sent to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

by his manager to avoid the throngs of well-wishers and autograph hunters that were overwhelming him.

At the time of his death, Sands' record stood at 97 wins (62 by KO), 10 losses, a draw and 2 no-contests from 110 fights.

There are two memorials for Dave Sands in his home town of Stockton

Stockton, New South Wales

Stockton is a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, located from Newcastle's central business district. It is the only suburb of Newcastle that lies north of the Hunter River.-Geography:...

, near Newcastle, New South Wales

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

; another memorial is situated at Glebe

Glebe, New South Wales

Glebe is an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Glebe is located 3 km south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney, in the Inner West region....

in Sydney

Sydney

. There is also a memorial rest park near Dungog where the fatal truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

crash took place.

Reference sources

Pictures held and digitised as part of the Arnold Thomas boxing collection by the National Library of Australia

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