How we delivered a low blow to boxing kangaroo

But poor Sydney had already taken a painful blow below the belt.

Here he is delivering a couple of wicked kicks to his trainer, Jacko Fossett, in advance of the Willenhall show of the Robert Brothers circus in April 1960, which was then due to move on to Shropshire.

Not everything in our photo is quite as it seems, as on the back of the original print are a couple of instructions for our newspaper artist of the time. One is "castrate" and the other is "put in boxing gloves."

So, not to put too fine a point on it, Sydney's gloves have been painted in... and his goolies have been painted out.

Robert Brothers had been featuring a boxing kangaroo since the early 1950s. One of the most high profile, and unusual, bouts of all for Sydney – although we can't be sure it was the same Sydney as the circus had several boxing kangaroos of that name down the years – came in 1966 when his opponent was none other than the American comedian Woody Allen.

They faced each other on a British television variety show called Hippodrome, which was aimed at American audiences.

You can watch what happened in the "comedy bout" online.

Allen appears wearing boxing vest, shorts, and gloves, and announces: "Tonight, on Hippodrome, you're going to watch me fight the Australian light heavyweight champion."

He then prances around the ring, circling Sydney, and making silly boxing-style poses and moves amid gales of laughter from the audience.

Sydney, apparently initially bemused, then makes a lunge which nearly sends Allen out of the ring. Then he gets Allen in a brief headlock.

The comedian wisely keeps his distance as Sydney is declared the winner after one round. The kangaroo then grabs the ringmaster around the neck and propels him out of the ring with a double-legged kick.

At this Allen beats a hasty exit.

Sydney was finally retired in the early 1970s. It was not the end of such acts, as he was succeeded by a younger boxing kangaroo called Skippy.

However public unease and the campaigning work of animal welfare champions, like the Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard, culminated in The Wild Animals in Circuses Act of 2019 which bans the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.