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Wrestling memories

10:20am Wednesday 8th July 2009


I USED to enjoy watching the wrestling on TV’s World of Sport every Saturday afternoon when I was a youngster.

There was nothing better than watching stars such as Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki staging mock battles in the ring before the legend that is Dickie Davies told us that it was time for the football results.

British wrestling, particularly in the Eighties, was quite a phenomenon on a Saturday afternoon, and I remember the laughs my Dad and I had watching it after we ate our weekly serving of egg and chips.

Wrestling is now big business in the US, but over here it seems to have disappeared. There is more chance of seeing Scottish tennis star Andy Murray having a laughing fit than wrestling becoming a televised British institution once again, but memories of the Boston crab stronghold shall live on.

Christopher Wardell, Darlington.


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Your Say YourNorth-East

Edmondsley, Chester le Street says...
5:41pm Wed 8 Jul 09

Can I add "Billy two rivers". and Jackie Pallo Commentator Kent Walton. That would have been the early 1960s

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J.Moffatt, chilton says...
7:59pm Wed 8 Jul 09

I always liked Mick Mcmannus.It was always great enterjoyment.

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David Lacey, Durham says...
11:44am Thu 9 Jul 09

And they actually used wrestling holds unlike the freaks in the WWE which my grandson watches.

I'd like to add that dirty old so-and-so Les Kellet and the gentleman's champion, Bert Royal to the list.

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TimeBandit, says...
2:09pm Thu 9 Jul 09

I well remember my grannie watching during the 60's and whenever the bad guy got away with a foul move she would curse the ref!. My attempts to persuade her that it was n't to be taken seriously fell on deaf ears.

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Nick Scott, Durham says...
11:43am Fri 10 Jul 09

Cracking stuff. I remember watching Giant Haystacks live towards the end of his career. He was actually attacked by an elderly lady in the front row using her shoe as a weapon.

Can I add Catweazel and Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco to the list?

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69lou96, darlington says...
1:08am Wed 15 Jul 09

Saw Giant Haystacks at Gladstone Street Baths when they used to cover the baths with a 'floor' in the winter and stage wrestling amongst other things. All I can remember is Giant Haystacks putting the rope from his outfit into the other blokes eye and getting disqualified. He stormed out of the hall and walked right past me as I was sitting at the end of the row. He scared the life out of me and I dived over my mother into the empty seat next to her! I must have been about 8 years old at the time!

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BIG HIT: Thumbs up from wrestler Big Daddy who found himself among adoring young fans during a visit to Peterlee, Co Durham, in the early Eighties. Real name Shirley Crabtree, he died in 1997 BIG HIT: Thumbs up from wrestler Big Daddy who found himself among adoring young fans during a visit to Peterlee, Co Durham, in the early Eighties. Real name Shirley Crabtree, he died in 1997


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