Nathan Mann vs Eddie Blunt At Savin Rock's White City Stadium
- Dominic Konareski
- 59 minutes ago
- 2 min read
As seen in the West Haven Voice November 27th, 2025, edition.
See the original article here.
Usually once a week I scroll on eBay looking for West Haven sports history memorabilia, mainly surrounding the West Haven Yankees and racing programs from Donovan Field as I collect game programs, tickets and really anything having to do with West Haven sporting history.
Several days ago I happened to come across a ticket stub from Savin Rock’s White City Stadium, featuring a boxing bout between Nathan Mann vs Eddie Blunt. The event was dated for August 31st, 1938, which was a Wednesday.
Now, for those who don’t know, West Haven’s White City was named after Chicago’s “White City” as Savin Rock had a 220-foot-tall tower strung in 60,000 electrical lights. Before the area became known as Savin Rock Amusement Park, it was called White City in 1903, before undergoing its final name change as Savin Rock Amusement Park in 1919.
The stadium itself, which once stood in what was like a mini city inside the West Haven park, is now long demolished with no recognition it even was at the shoreline.
Despite hours of research I was unable to find a photo of the stadium itself holding boxing matches, as any media of it is likely lost in time or in a dusty box in someone's attic.
White City Stadium (not to be confused with Donovan Field which sat just a few hundred yards away), stood next to the trolley station and The Sky Blazer roller coaster which were all across tracks from the famous carousel ride.
Donovan Field housed semi-pro baseball along with West Haven High School football games and later on expanded to auto racing as well. Meanwhile, White City Stadium hosted boxing matches primarily. Overall though both Donovan Field and the Stadium had their fair share of boxing matches throughout their history.
Going on boxerlist, which is a database of all professional bouts dating back to nearly a century, shows the match between Mann and Blunt at the Stadium. But one thing is off: the date. According to boxerlist, the date of the bout was Tuesday, September 6th, 1938, for what is a six-day gap. It is very possible the date entered into the database is wrong, considering the bout was nearly 100-years ago or the match got postponed to the next week.
Nonetheless, Mann and Blunt did fight at White City Stadium, and would end the bout in a points-based draw. The two would face each other again twice in 1945, splitting the bouts at one win apiece.