John Smillie (boxer)

Smillie became a miner aged 17, working at the Woodmuir Colliery in West Calder.^[1] He joined the Fauldhouse Miners Club where he took up boxing.^[2]

Boxing out of Faulldhouse BC, he reached the final of the Scottish ABA Championships and was selected to represent Great Britain at the 1952 Summer Olympics, as a reserve to Welshman Dai Dower.^[2] He won the ABA bantamweight championship in 1953^[3] and 1954.^[4]

He represented the Scottish team^[5] at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada, where he won the gold medal in the bantamweight division.^[6]

Smillie continued working as a miner^[7] but later turned professional and fought 46 bouts from March 1955 to October 1962.^[8]