Main Mask has kindly shared a new Alan Garfield photo:
I've been looking everywhere for the 2004 thread which we have revived every five years or so as we have moved forum location, but this time I just can't find it. Can anyone help?
We had so much magnificent communal research and memories in one very long thread, including personal recollections from Alan Garfield's nephew. And valuable new memories as new Members have joined over the years.
We had also grouped lots of photos, inclusing this one which Main Mask has also found:
Saxonwolf reminds us that Tinker Todd was Ramon Napolitano - complete with genuine WW2 military career. And also with Californian family.
Garfield had done the same Bentley gimmick on his earlier tour, with Oliver Winrush as tag partner. It seems Winrush was also Napolitano.
And yet Garfield's title bouts and championship reign in tag were alongside Karl Von Schober - don't tell me that was Ramon Napolitano too!
Once again, Garfield pushing believability with his "array" of tag partners.
I know Ron loves to rise to these sorts of challenges: I wonder what history we can see in British rings of Garfield and Napolitano on the same bill? Probably, if at all, in opposite corners.
Since John is with us, and mindful that Garfield was billed from Sydney for ten years, and has to this day a restaurant named after him in the Dandenongs: did Alan Garfield ever wrestle in Australia?
Hi Ron
Part of my fascination with Alan Garfield - and there are many many parts - is that he mischievously wanted to push the level of (in)credibility as far as a he could. Here he taunts Americans by giving them vent to their stereotypes of foreigners. So hard for us to judge now: you call it tosh, but it clearly put bums on seats. Impossible to know how many US fans would have swallowed even part of this way back then. At least Garfield was British! For my part back in the sixties I knew that Nagasaki was Japanese. Thanks for the post, we have quite good coverage of his two US tours.
Hi John
Just because we have only one poster for Garfield in France it doesn't mean that he only wrestled there the once. Judo Al Hayes linked up plenty of UK wrestler for work in France. We have only scratched at the surface and probably are aware of fewer than one per cent of French bills. Given that we know that the likes of Royal and Davies and Taylor and Hesselle and Bert and many others channel-hopped with some regularity, also pre-1961, and not to mention Hayes and Hunter, we can also imagine that Garfield did too - though chunks of his career were spent in South Africa and Stateside. Interesting that the likes of Dr Death and McManus, invincible on their own bills, were wise enough not to expect French stars to succumb to them.
Hi Anglo. Years ago I asked Alan (Riot Squad) for more detail on Heritage's remarks that Alan (Garfield) was very popular in Paris. He said something along the lines of 'Now look here old chap, I have no idea about the subject you raise, get in touch with Anglo' I don't believe I ever did. I have, over the years trolled through Bob Plantin's huge French blog and have only come up with one mention, down the bottom of the bill, name spelled incorrectly. I even asked Bob P. If he recalled Alan (Garfield) and he replied 'I started my career in '61 and don't know of him, maybe he was retired by then'! Don't know him, retired by '61, what?!
So Anglo, do you have any idea, as suggested by Alan (Riot, not Garfield) who gave the information all those years ago, to Heritage, that Alan (Garfield not Riot) was 'popular in Paris'?
I'm joining in this lovely 'rehash'! A.G. Was my favourite villain. Looked every bit of a 'toff', every bit of a villain and every bit of a wrestler. When he fought Ricki Starr at Brighton Stadium the first time, all the cheers from the packed venue, were for his opponent, an American! Another time, same place, he beat Johnny Yearsley to face Joe Cornelius in the final of a one night knockout competition. Joe made the final after he had been mauled by Danny Lynch and had rosin smeared in his eyes by Jack Bence and faced Alan with one eye bruised and closed. Joe was the darling of Brighton (as well as many other places) so of course he was going to win, after a hammering, stealing a winning fall. He DIDN'T. He LOST, in the best bit of booking I ever witnessed in the U.K. (Maybe it was just fluke booking). The crowd was devastated.
Alan Garfield master Villain, v Joe Cornelius, Consummate hero. It couldn't be any better than that!
A very old thread revived because I have found a treat for Anglo.
SUCH TOSH (click to enlarge)
Do we have an approximate idea of when he retired from the ring?
I seem to think his nephew told us this on the old 1-stop site, over a decade ago?
Oh yes, good point Ballymoss. I was only considering Billy Barber's DM days. And Lincoln programmes largely stopped their creativity after 1966. So I will now revise my guess based on studying Garfield's match record and the periods when he faced Hayes on Lincoln bills.
This throws up 4th January 1962 in Leyton. I'll plump for that as the Garfield I remember ten years later had an older physique.
Mate of MM will reveal all, perhaps? Of course the photo could have been used years later so we'll never really know.
A brilliant find and I can recall seeing this picture being in a Paul Lincoln programme. I wonder if it was a little earlier only because Billy Barber was gradually replaced as Lincoln's principal referee by Max Ward, before 1969. Of course this is only a guess, and I now realise I first saw Alan Garfield live nearly sixty years ago !!
Here's another corker from Main Mask. I'm wondering which publication this appeared in? Rare shot of Billy Barber.
I'm taking a stab at the year: 1969.
Anglo italian suggested the description meant Garfield had an unbeaten run.
Possibly, as tickets were on sale at Ye Olde Humbugge Shop
Another Rare FLYER Featuring the 'TURBULENT ONE' for you ANGLO!- This one 1961 from
BURNT OAK!!
MAIN MASK
Asking whether Garfield has "finally met his match" in these latest Main Mask contributions rather implies some kind of unbeaten run, doesn't it?
Here's a shot of Alan with one of his famous 1930's era Bentleys. Interestingly the article makes no mention of him and focuses on the likes of Rex Gable.
I always found it fascinating when Alan Garfield was billed as hailing from Australia, as when he engaged with opponents and fans, he usually adopted the persona of an "English Gentleman". I suspect this cultivated accent was as dubious as his Sydney Australia tag. Nevertheless, what a showman!
I've often wondered why they persisted in billing him from Australia. But perhaps this, along with the unreal name - believably normal - was all necessary to keep the taxman off his scent ...
More memorabilia from Main Mask.
I believe Alan Garfield had been "the strongest man in Britain" just before this. Quite what truth there was in that claim, who knows, but pre-internet they could get away with anything.
Thanks Ballymoss, I always enjoy reading your memories.
I suppose we have to come back to the age-old but not very often mentioned question of tax-paying.
Ost reminds us of a total 1962 absence. And we know either side of that that Alan Garfield wrestled also to Paul Lincoln. Simultaneously he was buying and selling motor cars. Heaven knows how he managed his affairs.
Various wrestlers had reasons for not wanting to be on tv. Leon Arras was the most celebrated, for the nice clean reason of being a schoolmaster. But others had all sorts of other reasons whether regarding complex love lives, criminal records or money.........Some great wrestlers may, and I am only surmising, may have preferred to stick with the non-televised independemts for this reason.
All of 1962 he spent in North America.
I believe Anglo Italian has made some very valid points concerning the lack of tv coverage for Alan Garfield. When ITV introduced wrestling in 1955, Garfield was an established star and the paucity of his television appearances until his "ban" ten years later, merits an explanation. In theory he was a natural for television and I wonder why a "feud" with someone like Joe Cornelius was never instigated. I can only remember once seeing him on television, and his performance was rather tame in contrast to seeing him live. Another mystery to solve?