CURIOUS MORRELL ENCLAVE-LIME GROVE!!

Some say Morrell WAS Hitler.

He sure was Main Mask.

In the 1936 Olympic Games Norman Morrell competed in both the Greco Roman and freestyle competitions in the featherweight class. In the Greco Roman competition he lost to the French wrestler Eugene Kracher and the German Sebastian Hering. In the freestyle competition he opened with a win over Germany's Josef Bock before going on to be beaten and eliminated by the eventual silver medal winner, Frank Millard of the USA, and the Italian Marco Gavelli. On the domestic scene Morrell was near invincible at his weight. He was British featherweight champion for four consecutive years, from 1933 to 1936.

https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/m-morrell

I've found a bit more about the Lime Grove history but not the answer to The Ost's query of the start of Morrell's tenure at Lime Grove Baths. Well it goes back a long way, definitely pre-dating Norman Morrell, with the first show on 17th October, 1932.

Look at those prices! More than I was paying in 1965.

Promoters were Jack and Maurice Bodinetz, who had started out as boxing promoters and put on

wrestling in the south of England. In May, 1934 they were fined £25 each for selling tickets to a wrestling show at Lime Grove Baths without the Entertainments Tax stamp.

Following the war wrestling resumed at Lime Grove in 1946. Morrell was already promoting by then so he may have been the promoter but I don't know. An article on wrestling at Lime Grove Baths was published in the Daily Mirror of January

18th, 1949. The promoter was named as Bradford born Walter Morrell. I wonder if this was Norman, another member of the Morrell family (surely not) or shoddy journalism.

Lime Grove was one of the first venues for tv wrestling.On Tuesday 3rd January, 1956, Norman Walsh beat Reg Williams and Harry Fields drew with Alan Colbeck.

Earliest I can see is the beginning of 1936. That would be before Morrell's time.

I have no idea when wrestling commenced at Lime Grove, but I am fairly certain my father and his friends were in attendance during the mid 1950's. Lime Grove, as did a number of London venues, used

to be advertised in the old London Evening News, and was sometimes mentioned in the local weekly paper, which in those days had a healthy circulation. Of course,

when televised wrestling started in 1955

it gave Lime Grove, in common with many other locations, a considerable boost.

The venue usually staged first class wrestling often superior to anything promoted by Dale Martin and came to an end as the victim of a development scheme instigated by the local council.

Just wanted to follow up on this a bit more. I talked to Dave Cameron about this and he said much the same things as ballymoss. It was the one venue in London where you could see all the name wrestlers from up North. But they would all leave town after the show. What I'd like to try and pinpoint is when Morrell began running there. I've come across an advertisement from the beginning of 1949 and Morrell is already running Lime Grove. So this was well established by the 60s.

Good wrestlers, good bills.

I regularly attended Lime Grove Baths from the early to mid 1960's, and it was indeed rather different to the other wrestling shows staged in London at this time.

The venue was certainly austere, having probably last been given a coat of paint pre-war, with rather uncomfortable seating, and refreshments-tea or coffee, served from a large urn. The programmes and

handbills had a dated appearance- so glamorous it was not, being a far cry from the stylish Paul Lincoln and Dale Martin.

However, what was of the highest standard, at least when I visited, was the quality of wrestling staged.Overseen usually by the two Ernests- Lofthouse (MC) and Baldwin (referee) in a dour fashion-Mr Lofthouse always referred to contests and tournament in his introduction, it gave us Southerners the opportunity to regularly see the leading Northern stars with such heavyweights as Geoff Portz, Albert Wall, Billy Joyce and among the lighter brigade champions Alan Colbeck, Jack Dempsey and Melwyn Riss. From overseas I can remember such great talents as George Gordienko, Gideon Gidea and Josef

Kovacs while the promoter shrewdly booked local West London based wrestlers such as Spencer Churchill. Billy Stock and Reg Trood, who always received loyal support, and the notorious Peter Rain,who certainly did not. Even Alan Garfield was cheered although his opponent was Danny Lynch.

I believe Norman Morrell made a good investment when he decided to stage wrestling at Lime Grove as he was rewarded with a loyal, large attendance, and subsequent television coverage. Sadly it is nearly 60 years since I first went to Lime Grove and it is wonderful to see this quirky but wonderful venue still remembered- in my case very fondly indeed.

Sorry I got the wrong end of stick,keep going.

No Big Al, I was appreciative.

But no worries, I can handle these lightweights!

Hi Anglo,I not sure if you were having a pop at me,but I did feel sorry for you at getting some stick.

might have to change my mind!!

I don't know why you are worrying about what should be done with Logan's weight and the classification of his bouts. We are describing history here, we can't change it. Done and dusted.

Logan and Kellett appeared in thousands of heavyweight bouts. That's a fact. I explained the justification for that, the logical system applied by the promoters over years, one that I went along with.

Main Mask, if you want to say that was wrong, that's your prerogative. But that's what happened.

Consider that in the same era Henry Cooper was British Heavyweight champion, fighting all the big worldwide names. Henry never weighed in over 14 stones. Wrestling was keen to mirror boxing in many ways. Logan's weight class was plausible then; admittedly not with hindsight when, 50 years later, 20 stones is just an everage US wrestler.

As for Big Al, no worries at all. It's only when someone climbs off the very long fence to make an interesting comment that others join in. On this Sloppiest of threads, in terms of insertions and comments (☺), I see you have selected another choice example of everywhere south of Coventry being London. Graham and Arras get their towns specified (what a surprise, both in Yorkshire) whilst the rest, including Maidstone's Aaron, are Londoners. And this at a London venue. Dreadful.

I do feel as a result of this thread, however, the imminent revelation from Roneology that there was in fact a fourth Yorkshire Crabtree brother ... who wrestled under the name of Kwango.

Sorry you had to take some stick anglo, mate wish I hadn't put the lime grove programme on the forum

ha ha.

I would imagine Logan went over 14 stones at some point. He was a pretty rugged guy , big chest. I would say five eight when he was younger.

I met him as quite an old man , much weight lost but still must have been thirteen stone.

Marino also must have been well over 14 stone , just maybe not 15 stone.

Bernard and Main Mask, you say that I " omit to comment on the criticism of your remarks. " I specifically did. This is what forms the progression of these threads.

But when you start to make comments like that, this forum is going in the wrong direction. I want to discuss wrestling history here, not squabble about form.

Criticism needs to be valid. You stick to your "fact" that Kwango had a northern accent and be happy.

As for Logan, you seem very certain that he weighed 13st10lb, Main Mask. There's nothing "official" in any of this, it's wrestling theatre. But if you want some kind of authoritative benchmark, Logan regularly featured in the ratings in the light-heavyweight division, never, as I recall, in any lower bracket.

I haven't the faintest idea what's going on, but I can see they were still running shows at Lime Grove in 1971. Also the suggestion of a pint is a good one.

Whose turn is it to get the next pint in?