First Golden Boy had grit

We turned our clocks back an hour last weekend as Standard Time returned.

This week let’s turn the clock back 70 years to Nov. 25, 1939, and Phil Vickery’s finest hour.

Vickery has to be one of the North Shore’s most resilient athletes ever. Absolute proof of that is the clock awarded to him that day as the first Golden Boy at the inaugural B.C. Golden Gloves boxing championships.

Gritty. Persevering. Irrepressible. Dogged. Indefatigable. Unshakable.

So many good adjectives to describe this lion-hearted lad’s short, star-crossed life. Yeah, lion-hearted. His niece, Vicki (Eccles) Sharp, can relate to that. She grew up with the plush lion found among her uncle’s effects after his plane plummeted earthward somewhere along the African coast on June 22, 1943, during the height of World War II, when he was 25 and she was barely three months old.

But we really need to start at the beginning.

Philip Arthur Vane Vickery was born as the youngest of three children to Arthur Vane “Vic” Vickery and Alisanne “Cis” (Potten) Vickery who met in Vernon about 1912 after both emigrated from the UK. They married in Vernon on Sept. 3, 1914. Vivien, their first child, was born July 9, 1915, followed by Alison and then Phil in late 1917 or early 1918.

It’s difficult to imagine but Phil was playing on the train tracks near their home in Vernon one day when he was three. That’s when the crippling accident that would help define him took place.

Vicki Sharp never met her uncle. But she knows the story. She grew up here too, going to Lonsdale School, Hamilton Junior High and Delbrook in the 1950s and even lived in the still-standing home at 420 Tempe Crescent where Phil and his parents resided in the 1930s after his family lived initially in the 400-block of West Keith Road following their move to North Van in 1924.

“He got run over by a train,” she explains after a good bit of genealogical sleuth work by your favourite columnist, combined with a touch of pure luck, found her in Osoyoos where she was staying last week before returning home to Victoria.

“The train squashed the bone in his foot. So he had a club foot and always had to have his shoe or boot built up inside.”

He made regular trips to Vancouver for treatment and as an adult wore a size 10 shoe on his left foot and a six on his damaged right. However, the injury couldn’t stop him from playing sports. Or enlisting for the war.

A student at Queen Mary Elementary and North Van High, plus a year at UBC, Phil played football for the North Shore Lions in the 1930s under legendary coach George Deacon.

But Phil was also a boxer, fighting under the banner of the Olympic Athletic Club which was founded in the mid-1930s and had its headquarters in the now-demolished Olympic Hotel (previously the Reda family’s luxurious Palace Hotel) on East Second Street.

Records of Vickery’s matches have been lost in time, although The North Shore Press of Nov. 25, 1938, recounted one at Vancouver’s Bessborough Armouries on West 11th.

“Vickery,” the paper noted, “put up a gallant fight against Eddie Blondell of Langley, losing on points after the hardest-hitting scrap of the evening. Vickery was hurt in one of the early rounds but fought out the five, although it was discovered afterwards that he had sustained a broken rib.”

That’s our boy alright. Never give up.

A year later, at the first B.C. Golden Gloves held at the PNE Auditorium, it was Vickery making big headlines.

“VICKERY’S FIRST FIGHT IN YEAR A HONEY,” screamed The Vancouver Sun.

“The bright lights are, oh, so dazzling in the eyes of Phil Vickery, North Vancouver’s rugged young Golden Glover,” the story began.

“Vickery hadn’t had a fight for a whole year. He had just two gym workouts before stepping into the Auditorium ring last night. Yet when the judges gave Norm Dawson the decision after four milling rounds, their verdict was greeted with the healthiest Bronx cheer of the evening.

“Phil was vindicated, however, as Dawson suffered a broken knuckle, among other things, in the course of the sizzling set to. The North Shore fighter will consequently be back for more action in the middleweight class tonight.”

The Vancouver Daily Province reported, “Dawson and Vickery made the crowd give out with its biggest roar. Norm was easily the better of the two and won from here to Burrard bridge, but Mr. Vickery’s straight left which kept pecking away at the Dawson chops for four rounds was a treat to watch. Dawson had his man nearly out in the opening heat, but Mr. Vickery’s heart saw him through. Between rounds someone must have told him he had a left hand, and his heart had some help from there on.

“Unfortunately Dawson broke a small bone in his left hand and is out of the tourney. Vickery automatically comes back in and will meet Joe Ashenbrenner tonight.”

Phil Vickery

Their title fight was the highlight of the finals as The Sun related.

“…Vickery, by virtue of a narrow victory over the favoured Joe Ashenbrenner in the finals of the middleweight class, won the acclaim of the 2500 fans who selected the most popular champion of the tournament. To Phil went the handsome clock mounted with the golden figure of a boxer, a special trophy presented by Sid Beech.

“Vickery’s win over Ashenbrenner was as surprising as his fight against Norm Dawson the previous night. He gave Ashenbrenner all Joe could handle, closing his eye from a vicious, two-fisted attack in the final two rounds.

“Ashenbrenner, in the third round, appeared to have the fight going his own way as he lopped a terrific right that floored Vickery for an eight count. But the North Vancouver boy bounced off the floor and renewed the warfare with more determination.”

Classic Vickery for sure.

Today that clock still ticks proudly in Vicki Sharp’s living room, a reminder of her courageous uncle and his fighting spirit that could only be vanquished by enemy fire off the shores of Africa during a bleak day of battle so long ago.

This is episode 352 from Len Corben’s treasure chest of stories – the great events and the quirky – that bring to life the North Shore’s rich sports history.

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