Alberton amateur boxing is looking back to proud history
The amalgamation of Alberton Amateur Boxing Club with Champions Boxing Club, earlier this year, was another important phase in the club’s 76-year history.
ALBERTON – At the jubilee celebrations in 1989, the first 50 years of history was reflected on. At that occasion, in the Barry Vorster Hall, Piet Wepener, the vice-chairman, welcomed everyone on behalf of the chairman’s committee.
Theunis Engelbrecht looked back over the life and times of the late Barry Vorster, who died shortly after the event. Barry also organised the entire festive celebrations.
Tributes were also paid by the then honorary president, Johann van der Merwe, and former Alberton Mayor Clr Dirk Smit, who today is the Speaker of the City of Cape Town.
At the 50 year jubilee tournament, victories were achieved in three of the four bouts, by Willie de Lange, Koos Strydom and David van Nieuwenhuizen, the youngest member of the well-known van Nieuwenhuizen boxing family.
Exactly 10 years prior to jubilee night, when the club was 40 years old, the senior Alberton team won the then Eastern Transvaal team trophy for the 1979 boxing year.
Members of the trophy winners’ team were: Barney Buys, Alberton’s first Sportsman of the year in 1983, Theuns Koen, Piet Buys, Koos Cloete, Dick de Beer and André Lampbrecht, with Theunis Engelbrecht as coach-manager.
