Dave SandsPrint Page

The marble plaque commemorates the triple champion boxer of Australia and middleweight champion of the British Empire, Dave Sands, who was accidentally killed in 1952. He used to train on this oval.

It was in 1940 that the "Sands` Brothers", six young aboriginal men, emerged from the bushland of Kempsey on the north coast of New South Wales to try their hand in the world of professional boxing, the toughest of all sports. They were to become known world-wide and famous as "the Fighting Sands" and unique in boxing history, for there had been none before and none since to match their deeds, leaving them acclaimed as arguably Australia`s greatest ever sporting family.

The punching brothers Clem, Ritchie, George, Dave, Alfie and Russell all had the ability and courage above the ordinary, but the star and most gifted of the brothers was Dave, the fourth eldest. His boxing career commenced in Newcastle in 1941 and finished when he was killed at Dungog on 11th August 1952. The truck he was driving failed to negotiate a bend in the road and overturned, ending his life at 26 years of age. In his 100 fight career Dave won 1 State, 3 Australian, 1 Australasian and the British Empire Middleweight Championships, rising to be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Newcastle Council Works Committee decided last night that if Stockton residents raised sufficient money for a memorial plaque for Dave Sands and its design were approved, the council would fit it into the brickwork of Lynn Oval Pavilion. The Secretary of Stockton Progress Association (Mr. J. C. Herrald) advised that his association was trying to have a memorial erected in Stockton to perpetuate the memory of Dave Sands, who had often trained at Lynn Oval. A plaque in his memory would be appropriate. Ald. Breen said the subscription for the plaque should be left to the people of Stockton and should not be paid for by ratepayers.
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW),
29 October 1952.

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