AN EXHIBITION on Scottish boxing, including a display for Clacks legend Tommy Speirs, will open to the public next week.

As previously reported, researchers were hoping to immortalise the story of the Alloa champion in the University of Stirling archives’ Tales from the Ring initiative.

Project officer Ian Mackintosh has since managed to speak to some of Tommy’s family who lent a number of items for the exhibition, which will be open to the public at the university’s library from Monday, January 20.

Tommy Speirs, or Spiers, is one of the Wee County’s most famous sons and won the Scottish Amateur Lightweight Championship in 1929 and the Scottish Lightweight Championship in 1933 after going pro.

The latter title was claimed from Jim Hunter following a rematch in Govan.

But the pair also faced off a year earlier at the Recs (pictured), with around 7,000 people squeezed into the stadium to watch the spectacle in '32.

Although Tommy lost that time in the 11th round to a TKO, he bounced back to take the title with a KO in round nine a year later.

After hanging up the gloves, the “Kid from Nowhere” as critics at the time called him, launched a club on Park Lane in Alloa, hoping to take children off the streets and giving the opportunities to take lessons in boxing, gymnastics and wrestling.

He would even offer free training to disadvantaged children if they could not afford it.

Despite all his achievements, sources such as the 1986 Clackmannan District Libraries book Tommy Spiers – The Story of a Boxing Champion from Alloa say he always remained a humble man.

Other famous people from the world of boxing were also interviewed as part of the project, they include the likes of Dick McTaggart, Charlie Kane and Frank Gilfeather.