Archie Bradley (4 January 1897 – 27 March 1969) was an Australian professional boxer of the 1920s. Also known as the "Gympie Whirlwind" or the "Gympie Tornado", Archie Bradley was the Australian

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

Champion from 1922–1924. At the height of his popularity Bradley was afforded huge publicity with whole pages of magazines and newspapers devoted to his boxing career. It was not uncommon for over 12,000 fans to fill stadiums in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

and Sydney to watch him fight. In the 1920s his stamina and athletic ability as both a boxer and a professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

footballer became legendary.The Archie Bradley story:the fighting career of Archie Bradley from Gympie, Queensland. Compiled by Keith Parker.

Personal life

Bradley was born at Wickham Street,

Gympie Gympie ( ) is a city and a locality in the Gympie Region, Queensland, Australia. In the Wide Bay-Burnett District, Gympie is about north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city lies on the Mary River, which floods Gympie occasionally. The ...

, Queensland on 4 January 1897. He was the seventh of 10 children born to John (b. 1860,

Ulverston Ulverston is a market town and a civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census the parish had a population of 11,524, increasing at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census to ...

) and Minnie Bradley (née Gierke, b. 1866,

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 ...

Career

In September 1917 Bradley had his first professional fight against Joe Healy at the Theatre Royal in Gympie. After 15 rounds the fight was awarded to Healy in a controversial decision. Bradley went on to win 14 fights in Gympie before travelling to Brisbane in 1918, at the age of 21 years, to further his career. In an eight-month period in Brisbane he had seven wins in seven bouts—against boxers such as "Smiling Georgie" Malouf, Roy Hayward, Bert Secombe and Jimmy Hill. After a loss to Silvino Jamito on a foul in the fifth round, he went on to outpoint Eugene Volaire and

knock out A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

the famous Eddie Lynch after nine rounds of furious fighting. In August 1921 Bradley beat Sid Godfrey on points. In 1922 he took the welterweight crown from Tommy Uren, and was later described as "probably the greatest fighter to come out of ueensland . He had a break from boxing from August 1925 – September 1926, but was out of form on his return, losing soundly to Jim Cox.

Life after boxing

After his retirement from boxing, Bradley bred greyhounds for racing, and produced champions including "Archie's Wonder", "Bradley's Best", and "Archie's Gift". He also managed a relative of his who was taking up heavyweight boxing, Col Daley, who went undefeated for at least 29 fights. He kept up his associations with the sport until at least the 1950s, attending tournaments at mission stations.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Archie Australian male boxers Australian rugby league players People from Gympie 1897 births 1969 deaths Welterweight boxers