Mexborough and Swinton Times November 29, 1929

A Triumph of Tactics.
How Experience Was Out-Matched.
Baulked Champion and Too-Cautious Challenger.
At Holborn

The Weigh-In – Crossley and Moody before the fight in the weighing room

As I at in the auditorium of the Stadium Club in Holborn on Monday night, waiting for the championship fight between Harry Crossley and Frank Moody, my mind travelled hack twenty years to that other night in April, 1909, when with other Mexboroughites I waited in the National Sporting Club to see Iron Hague put fortune to the touch to win or lose it all.

On both occasions I saw a Mexborough man dethrone a champion of England; but oh! what a difference!

With one terrific punch Iron Hague demolished Gunner Moir, a trim, tight, perfectly trained fighting, machine, and I shall never forget the look of horrified amazement on the champion’s face as the vicious blow went home and he tottered to his fall.

Harry Crossley on Monday night won his championship by a longer and daintier route, land all along the course of 15 rounds there was scarcely a punch landed which would be called heavy, even in the “light-heavy” class—certainly nothing comparable to the shattering wallops that Hague handed out in his day.

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