1 The Boxing Biographies Newsletter Volume 7 No 6 – 14th June , 2011 www.boxingbiographies.com If you wish to sign up for the newsletters ( which includes the images ) please email the message “NEWS LETTER” [email protected] 2 Lloyds Weekly News 3 may, 1914 STORIES OF MEMORABLE FIGHTS. By R.P.Watson IN my opening article I told how as a boy, making my way to school in Manchester, I was attracted by the crowds of betting men in Thomas-street, and how I saw and admired Sam Hurst, the "Stalybridge Infant," a well-known pugilist of those days. The love of sport must have been in my blood, and great was my delight when, not long after this experience, Tom Sayers and John Camel Heenan came to Manchester and I saw them box at a local circus. It was the first time I had seen anything of the kind in my life, and a long time was to elapse before anything in this nature came my way again. After a chequered career Sayers had a rather sad end, and was buried from a Bootmaker's shop in High-street, Camden Town. At that time I had been entered as student of the Royal Veterinary College, and, living in the neighbourhood, curiosity took me to the funeral. It was a regrettable scene. The procession was attended by a coarse, brutal and blasphemous mob, who struggled, fought, and fell over each other, cursing and swearing, for no apparent reason, except to get as near to the funeral hearse as possible. There was an abundance of flowers, and behind the hearse came the open carriage in which Sayers used to drive about, and in which there now sat, bolt upright and looking very melancholy indeed has favourite dog. At Highgate Cemetery the behaviour of the crowd was simply disgraceful, but I am glad to say that such incidents could not be witnessed nowadays. The " On the Knee " Decision. As an official referee at boxing matches, I graduated in a hard, stern, and dangerous school, but of the many fights at which I acted there is only one that need be mentioned, because it was the one at which, as already stated, I gave the momentous decision that a man on one knee is considered down, and if struck in this position, is entitled to the stakes. This particular fight took place at the Three Colts Music Hall, Broadway, Victoria Park, and was a ludicrous, absurd, and miserable fiasco, lasting less than one round. The combatants were known as Dutchey and Raphael, and when Raphael was on one knee Dutchey struck him, and I disqualified Dutchey. There was a good deal of objection to this verdict, but it holds good to this day. Of these early contests two of the most remarkable took place at Sadler's Wells Theater . One was between Jem Goode and Mickey Rees, when Goode broke his right arm the first round, but pluckily fought on with his left for no fewer than twenty rounds. The police were called, but nothing more serious happened than the driving of the people from the building and stopping of the fight. An amusing Contest, took place at the " Wells " between two boxers named Tom Allen and Tompkin Gilbert. It was brief and decisive. Allen hit Gilbert flush on the nose a terrible smash, and Gilbert actually ran out of the ring. Everyone laughed, and, after a consultation, I was commissioned to see Gilbert and induce him to return. I found him in a sparsely furnished room above the theatre, his gloved hands reclining on his knees. 3 ―Mr. Gilbert," I said, "Allen does not claim the fight and wishes you to continue the contest‖. ―I’ve had enough of Tom Allen," said Gilbert applying his right hand to his bruised and flattened nose. "Go and tell him to give the rest to someone else‖. You can have it if you like, I've done with him." And that was the end of the fight. One other fight that took place about this time serves to recall the difference in the attitude of the authorities now and thirty five or forty years ago. In August, 1878, Joe Fowler and Tommy Hawkins fought at St Helens Gardens, Rotherhithe, for the feather-weight championship. There were no "gardens" of any sort there; only a dismantled, sorry-looking interior and a meager pitiful plot of grass. A stage had been erected near the entrance to the "gardens," and roped for the reception of the boxers. A noisy, boisterous crowd had assembled, many of them the worse for drink, and others childishly affected by the excitement of the occasion. On went the fight, and, by way of introducing a little variety into the proceedings, the spectators got up several fights on their own account. One spectator, recognised as an old fighter, climbed on to the ring, but was seized by Ted Napper, an exceptionally fine pugilist, and one of the best men of his weight in England, turned upside-down, and gently dropped on his head, several yards below the arena. The ground was soft, and the man's bead exceedingly hard so no harm resulted When darkness fell the contest was adjourned, after two hours and four minutes boxing. Later an attempt was made to complete the contract in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields. The meeting place was a carpenter's shop, but the police were on our track, and by the time half the party had climbed a ladder into a secret chamber the remainder had been dispersed in the street below Dodging the Police. Ah! those old days. The fight was fought out in spite of the police. This time the meeting place was called the " Assembly Room — as a " blind "—but in reality it was Brennan's Yard, Bull lane, Stepney Green. It was a wretched old shanty, big enough to hold 1000 people. Upwards of 800 paid for admission. It was one of the humorous incidents of boxing in those days that hundreds of people, unable to pay, mounted the roof of the building, tore off the slates, and in this way obtained an uninterrupted view of the proceedings. The contest lasted for three hours and twenty -three minutes, and, as a seat was an impossible luxury, the spectators, tired of standing, were delighted when the men agreed to a draw, especially as the floor was threatening to break through. It would not be possible nowadays for anyone to see men boxing by matchlight. Yet that is what actually occurred at a fight between Chesterfield Goode and Dick Roberts. When Frank Slavin came to this country Goode was the only man with the courage to face him in a fight. The Goode-Robert fight took place in a building in the Hackney-road, about a quarter of a mile from Kingsland Church, on the left hand side walking from Shoreditch. It was not a publicly advertised event, but a sufficiently large company patronised the event. A few rounds only were fought, when a certain gentleman, who shall be nameless, found an opportunity to turn off the gas. The spectators rushed out of the room, some escaping by the stairs into the street and others dropping out of the window into a yard beneath. 4 Fighting by Matchlight. By the light of matches the men fought on, but the supply becoming, exhausted. Tommy Trew who was the referee, ordered an adjournment. Just before this a messenger arrived and informed us that the street was full of police. There were not a dozen of us all told, but we resolved to rush the police. We could see them clustered around the door, and beyond them a densely-packed crowd, eagerly waiting to witness wholesale arrests. Creeping stealthily along a dark passage, myself in front, we drew near the door, and then the frantic rush of the rear- guard hurled me and those immediately behind me past the astonished policemen, and into the thick of the watching crowd, where we became lost. 4 few days later Goode and Roberts brought their engagement to a successful issue at the Rodney Arms, Walworth. and Goode won. Other incidents of the same kind occur to When Harrington and Greenfield fought at the old" Lambeth Baths, in West- Bridge-road, on Nor 27, 1879. There was tremendous excitement within the building, but that was trifling compared with the tumult that raged outside. It was danger on all sides. Alf Greenfield was disqualified, and his disqualification provoked a panic inside the building. Outside the streets were packed, and Westminster Bridge road was so densely crowded and the people so riotous and so dangerously mischievous that the shopkeepers closed and barricaded their premises. They had previous experience of the looting habits of a certain class when the opportunity offered. Bare Fist Fighting. Fighting with The ―Raw Uns." Otherwise the bare fists, has never been a sport I fancied, and it was a "lost art"— if art it could be called — before I became a sporting journalist. One such fight I did attend as referee by special invitation. It took place near Birmingham under the patronage of Lord Ayleaford, and two pugilists named Fowler and Griffiths were the men engaged. It was a " game fight " — to use the common expression— and had amusing as well as serious, issues. Fowler was very jocular, but after a severe and exciting contest he won. The last I saw of Griffiths was that sorrowful gentleman being driven from the field of battle, with a short clay pipe between the teeth of a face that had no earthly resemblance to that of a human being.