'The Name of the Game Is Money'
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7 Days 10 November 1971 SPORT 'The Name of the Game is Money' “ I get him 200 photographs, 200 publicity Jack Bodell will be in the ring next week photographs. I asked him to sign one for me and one for my Mrs. Just asked him for two o f them. Would he give them to m e . ? ” “ Bloody managers,” Bodell complains, “ who’s doing the Billy Hack went to Rose Valley, Swadlincote and talked to him fighting anyway . .?” Only the greengrocer seems happy with his deal, They called him “The Swadlincote Swineherd”. Johnie gave up the ring henchmen. Bodell buys beer for everybody, but smiling complacently, acting as the buffer between They wrote he was “awkward” and “ ugly” and that, drinks shandy himself. “ I used to be in this game Biddles and Jack, grinning inanely at everyone. Upstairs at the Royal Oak anyway, he could not box. Then, last September, for glory,” he says. “ But I’m not now. I’m in it for Jack Bodell got up in the ring in the Albert Hall Up the slope, on the main road in Newhall, is money. Of course, publicity, the right publicity, “Cooper beat Bugner” and stripped Golden Wonder Boy Bugner of all his the Royal Oak Inn, where Bodell has set up equals glory which in the end equals money, but it Eventually, we get back to talking about titles, shattering, piece by piece, the manufactured training headquarters for his fight with Quarry is only the money which keeps me fighting.” boxing. Bodell believes that Cooper really beat image of the custom-made pugilist. next Tuesday. The gym is tiny, claustrophobic and Biddles snaps sourly “ Money’s the name o f the Bugner, “ Mind you, I wasn’t in the ring, and I So Bodell, “ the unorthodox Southpaw” , got the empty when we arrive. Before long Bodell’s dour game.” And immediately, the whole group gets respect Harry Gibbs’" opinion, but I know who titles, inherited the mantle o f Henry Cooper, and manager, George Biddles, hurries in. He has down to dealing in tickets for Tuesday’s big fight won.” He’s scatning about Bugner. “ I fought him had the pleasure o f watching his battered and become rich on Jack’s snowball, but he never with Quarry. Bodell has a bundle o f a hundred or often in the gym, and he never gave me any discredited rival jetting out o f the country to try shows excitement. Is he worred about the Quarry more. He gives a handful of them to Bill, the trouble. Never.” But with the Wonder Boy broken, and build a new boxing career in the States. fight? “ No, he’s a good lad this one. He’ll take a Birmingham Greengrocer, who follows him the world is wide open to slammer Jack. He has lot of beating.” Hating London everywhere. Biddles, for some reason we can’t amazing stamina. Once he fought 10 fights in 64 Before long, the gym is alive with sparring For Midlands Jack, this was a singular triumph. make out, has to pay the Greengrocer for them. days. He did two major fights in two weeks this partners, the local bookie, ticket agents, and the He has always hated London and Londoners, and There is a furious argument as to whether the price year. After Quarry, he’s off to Madrid, to defend inevitable trilby hatted hangers-on, who relish the has never pretended to be anything other than a is £32 or £31.50. Bodell consults his book. A local his European title against Jose Urtain, on machismo o f the boxers’ world. journalist quips “ I hope Harry Levene knows how December 17th. boy from the pits, an ex-boxer for the National Women are not allowed in a boxing gym. The Coal Board. The London fight-game heavies, led much work you're doing for him.” Bodell protests aura o f male sexuality, o f exclusive aggression by that he doesn’t get a penny commission on the Ali next? by greedy promoters and grubby newshounds, men with super physiques is protectively shielded needed a glamour boy with star appeal to launch tickets he sells. Clearly, Jack has his sights set on bigger things. from female eyes. When the bar lady wanted to The local journalist starts bartering about the When we were in the gym, Biddles had told me, on the international circuit. As Bodell fitted the deliver a message for George Biddles, she had to bill neither in appearance nor style, they wanted price of photographs. Everyone claims that “ If he wins his next two fights - he’ll become knock, and somebody went out to see her. All the everyone else owes them money. They all produce heavy-weight champion of the world.” But he had to keep him out. men just barged in. But Bodell does not mind. After all, he’s the rolls o f fivers and settle up round the table. Bodell trotted it out, incredulously, with the bored champion now. We met him in Rose Valley, Bodell strips pushes his takings into a carrier bag and drops it inevitability o f a manager pushing his boy. on the floor beside him. In the pub, we got closer to the heart o f the Newhall, near Swadlincote, one evening last week. Bodell arrives, strips o ff and weighs himself in. matter. Biddles is dreaming o f a £100,000 purse The smokey haze from nearby factories and He starts wise-cracking with a group o f locals, who Quarry fight purse for an Ali fight. “ Split 60, 30, 10 that’ll do me collieries hung in the sky. Bodell was driving his have crowded in the door. He climbs into the ring very nicely thank-you.” Bodell agrees. cattle down the lane. Horses and hens were shouting “ I’m the awkwardest” . “That’s what they In the middle of all this, we ask Bodell how Meanwhile, everyone knows that Quarry is running free in the field behind his bungalow. tell us, Jack” somebody in the crowd calls back. much he’ll get from the Quarry fight. Biddles is quick o ff the mark. “ You can’t ask that sort of Jack’s hardest fight to date. Even the local bookie There was a Mercedes parked in the drive. Bodell’s trainer, Les, hurries around with a question. It’s a private matter between me and has made Quarry the odds-on favourite, and Jack’s “ The trouble with them boxing correspondents, broken egg-timer. Dave Roden, a tall, badly Quarry’s men. You can’t print that. Never mind at evens. The bookie is probably right. Quarry is and so on ,” he told us, “ is that they think that bruised young boxer from Birmingham, climbs what it’ll be,” Bodell confides, “ Georgell get 25 way above the dull Drover, precious Bugner class. everyone North o f St. Albans wears gum-boots and into the ring with the champion. For a few per cent” . Biddles assures him that he’s taking 33 But even if the Bodell dream is shattered next behaves like a country bumpkin.” minutes, they pace around like caged lions, and a third. Bodell lets out a stream o f friendly, Tuesday, and Biddles stops thinking of the Ali But he likes it when they tip him to lose, breathing deeply. The small crowd draws close. anti-semitic invective, and Biddles just complains purse, the people of Rose Valley, will still be right “ Because in the morning they only have to write “ Are you ready?” , Les asks both o f the boxers. that Bodell is mean. behind their hero. how well I boxed, to save their faces.” He has not They grunt out approval over their gum shields, lost a fight for the last four years. then they’re away. Bodell is never troubled, though Roden seems understandably breathless Back to the Land and nervous. He puts up a good showing though, Bodell seems to be unaffected by the £150,000 and gains muffled applause. he has picked up as a champion boxer. His After a few rounds Del Philips o f Cardiff takes children were playing nearby when we arrived. He Roden’s place. Philips seems slight and sent them inside before he spoke to us, “ I don’t insignificant besides thelumberingiy built Bodell. want to seem rude, or anything, but the eldest one Bodell lunges at him ferociously, hammering him is six, and he’s at school now. He’s getting a bit round the ring. Bodell, the battering butcher, the big-headed. He mustn’t get the idea he’s different. ruthless, impassioned slogger, raining a torrent of He’s just like any other child.” blustering blows, charging and sprawling like a Bodell has spent most of the money he has loose limbed bull. earned on land. He outlines the edges o f the Philips comes out o f it very badly, and, after nearby fields with a stick. “ That’s my land there. two rounds, slinks to the end o f the gym to work And I’ve got more up the road. I’m buying it as an out his aggression on a punch ball. For Bodell, it’s investment, really. The animals are just a hobby, a gruelling circuit o f punching, skipping and like. I don’t need to keep them. In fact I lose medicine balls, “ We are trying to build up his money on it. But it gives me something to do, stamina, you see” , Biddles tells me. keeps my mind o ff boxing for a bit.” Racism is sometimes inflamed by boxing.