Festival Hall to farewell Lionel Rose

AAP-May,15-It may not be consecrated, but there's no greater cathedral to stage Lionel Rose's farewell than Festival Hall.
The venue in inner Melbourne has been a hallowed hall for Australian boxing since being rebuilt in the 1950s and hundreds, if not thousands, of the sport's great characters will return on Monday for Rose's state funeral.
Of his 52 professional fights, 23 were at Festival Hall and Rose treated his vocal and loyal fans to 22 wins.
The grungy hall in a grungy part of town became a home away from home for the teenager from a Gippsland bush settlement who was forging a career in West Melbourne on his way to a world title in Tokyo.
Rose brought in the crowds to Festival Hall on a near monthly basis - in one 16-month stretch from May, 1966 he fought there 13 times.
The House of Stoush was an intimidating place for opponents, even against a kid who had quickly been embraced by Melbourne fight fans.
"It was a very volatile crowd for Lionel, they all seemed to love Lionel down there," said Queenslander Noel Kunde who fought Rose twice at Festival Hall, losing his Australian bantamweight title to the 18-year-old in 1966.
"It was a really good crowd, it was one of the biggest crowds I've ever fought before, especially for the title fight.
"Initially, it was awe inspiring, you'd look and think 'boy, there's a lot of people here', and they were all for Lionel."
Although, as a Christian, Kunde would like to see a church service for Rose as well, he believes Festival Hall is the perfect venue for a send-off.
"It's great it's going to happen like that for Lionel," Kunde said.
"There's no way in the world a church would be able to hold the number of people who'd like to go to Lionel's funeral, it would be the same number of people who wanted to see him fight."
Trainer Jack Rennie was as much a fixture at Festival Hall as Rose, standing in his corner for much of his career.
"Every fight he had there, they really packed it in and they all loved Lionel, they didn't really have many in there going for the opposition fighter," Rennie said.
"About 7000 would fill it up, there should be twice that there tomorrow (Monday).
"It'll be like going back to the early days.
"Lionel loved Festival Hall, he had such great support there, it's very appropriate we're saying goodbye to him there."
As a 16-year-old, Rose made his Festival Hall debut with an eight-round points win over Italian Mario Magris in October, 1964.
Two years and 18 fights later, he won his first Australian title when he beat Kunde, and 16 months after that he claimed the world bantamweight crown when he beat Japan's Fighting Harada in Tokyo in February, 1968.
Even though he'd outgrown Festival Hall, the new world champion returned there two months after beating Harada for a non-title fight win over Italy's former European champion Tommaso Galli in what was his farewell to his favourite venue.
Now it's time for Festival Hall to say goodbye to its favourite fighter.