Some sporting heroes live for just an instant, a single moment of glory. Others sparkle for awhile and give us opportunity to marvel at their skill. A select few endure for all time. Over a century after a wafer thin, stick like teenager appeared on the front of a fairground boxing booth in South Wales, it is still hard to conceive of the genius of Jimmy Wilde. Some say Muhammad Ali was the greatest, others maybe Sugar Ray Robinson, but no matter how far back you go, it is all but impossible to find a man that could do what the Mighty Atom did.

Jimmy was a mere 6st or therabouts when he first started fighting, a bag of bones and a tight tarpaulin of skin. Some laughed, others protested. How on earth could this be a fighting man, yet he squared up night after night, not just beating all comers, but laying them flat, muscular colliers, ironworkers, even up to twice his size. He won and kept winning, knocking out over a hundred men, although it is thought he fought on at least 800 occasions he lost just four times. So small, so frail that he often weighed in wearing workboots with lead weights in his pockets, Jimmy was a phenomenon. He became the flyweight champion of the world in 1916 and held it until 1923 and never made 7st in his fighting career.

To quote a well known boxing scribe, we will never see his like again, not even if we grow to be as old as Methuselah.

Wonder doesn't come into it. This little man became the greatest fighter of all time, and he was born at Quakers Yard, South Wales. He is immortalised in the boxing hall of fame in Canastota, New York.

If you don't know Jimmy, as a Welshman or woman you should. He never gave in, he never gave up. He had the heart of a lion and the speed of a panther. He reminds us what is undeniable, fighting spirit conquers all.