Krayzy Days Read online

  George introduced us to the young Frank Bruno. He was still amateur and as a teen was worried about entering the ABA championships.

  ‘I don’t know if I can take big men’s licks,’ said Bruno.

  I’ve always remembered his words. I suggested he sparred with Banjo but no sooner had the two boxers got gloved up than they were told to forget it by Joe Devitt. He said that Bruno was just too young to meet Banjo, though I’ve since wondered how that spar might have turned out. At that stage in their respective careers my money would have been on my guy. Over a short distance Banjo was too much for almost anyone. For the first few rounds he was always exciting, so incredibly strong and you could see it when he sparred with John L Gardner, British champion, who was then training for the European heavyweight title.

  Gardner had been sent from Terry Lawless’s gym at The Royal Oak in Canning Town. Over there people had been missing property out of their trouser pockets when they left them in the dressing room. Gardner was a gambler and Joe Devitt was going to be training him.

  I can still picture that spar in my mind even as I write this. Gardner was in the corner and his game was to burrow forward all the time, but it didn’t work against Banjo, who just pushed him back. Exasperated, Gardner eventually took a step backwards and kicked Banjo in the bollocks. They both had their groin cup protectors on but even so – this was the British heavyweight champion!

  Banjo also took a step back. ‘Do you wanna box?’ he shouted. ‘Or do you want to fight?’

  He was a student of judo and not a bad one at that. Without giving Gardner a chance to respond he swept his legs from under him and dived on top of him. I looked around for something to break them up and quickly grabbed a Courvoisier water bottle off the ring apron. I thought, I’ll have to hit him on the fucking head!

  Joe Devitt raced over and everyone started shouting.

  I waved the bottle at Gardner and said, ‘I’ll fucking fight you, Gardner, if you wanna fight.’ But it was only a momentary loss of control and the two fighters were calmed down.

  As peace returned, Devitt jabbed his thumb towards the door.

  ‘Fuck off home, Gardner.’

  And that was that – until Banjo went into the dressing room and found £70 missing out of his trousers.

  A more unlikely offer of sparring came from my son Michael. He was only about 17 and had accompanied us to The Wellington to watch. He was insistent that he wanted a go but I knew he’d never boxed and I was very reluctant to put him in at first. He kept asking and I thought that he’d seen what Banjo could do and once he’d had a little taste of it he wouldn’t come back for more. As Michael charged across the ring, trying to land a blow on Banjo, he was hit repeatedly in the face by Banjo’s ramrod left jab.

  After the day’s training I stopped at a petrol station on the way home.

  ‘I’ve got a terrible headache!’ said Michael.

  I thought to myself, yeah, you would have. That’ll teach you. But to my surprise, Michael came back the next day. I might not have been happy at first about him getting into boxing, but what could I do? If Banjo didn’t turn him off, nothing would. Michael would eventually go from amateur to professional as a boxer and was trained by Joe Devitt – because he didn’t want to listen to his dad. Boxing was good for him, tempering him and giving him strength and discipline. I could see the benefits of it, although in the end it proved not to be the career for him.

  In the meantime, my main focus remained with Banjo. It was coming up to 1980, the year of the Moscow Olympics and I wanted to get him on the team. Kevin Hickey was in charge of the English amateur team and its selection but I had no introduction to him and it proved impossible to get a contact. Amateur boxing was sewn up by men in blazers and I was coming in from nowhere. In the end, the lead I needed came from an unlikely source. A fella named Mickey Ludwig co-ran a large car dealership in Ilford specialising in Jaguars and the like. He and his mate were always going on about how much they earned, what they spent and their famous friends, who included boxing correspondent Reg Gutteridge. Perhaps I could put their endless boasting to good use.

  ‘Will you do us a favour?’ I said. ‘Ask Reg to give you Kevin Hickey’s address and phone number.’

  Mickey didn’t hesitate. No problem at all. I was very relieved – time was running out for the Olympic selection process. I already knew that Hickey was based in Blackpool, so while they got hold of Gutteridge I drove up north, having promised to call the Ilford fellas on the way.

  Mickey was less cocky when I phoned him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Can’t do it. Reg won’t tell us.’

  So much for all the ‘good friend’ business with Reg. I interrupted Mickey mid-apology:

  ‘Can’t fucking do it? I’m halfway up the fucking country. Don’t make me turn around and come back to find you.’

  He knew I was serious. I’d previously had a ruck with Mickey over some comments he made about a friend of mine. When we next spoke Mickey had Hickey’s phone number and his address.

  I checked into a hotel in Blackpool where I had a shower and a rest and then phoned Kevin.

  ‘I want to see you about a boxing matter. I’ve driven all the way from London.’

  He was a bit surprised but nice about it and agreed to meet me that evening at his house. I gave him a typical boxing manager story. All about how wonderful my man was and how he was ready to take on the world. I exaggerated his good points to some extent, but there was no doubt that his upright stance was made for amateur boxing. Kevin heard my sales pitch and, to my delight, agreed to see Banjo in action. I returned to the hotel with my head full of the excitement to come. It seemed as if we might actually be able to do it. If he got to Moscow, maybe Banjo could go all the way. I could picture him taking home the gold.

  Then Banjo got himself disqualified. Again. At the ABA Essex final in Tilbury. He hit his opponent on the chin and knocked him spark out. But the bell had already just gone. I decided to speak to Kevin Hickey but I knew it wasn’t looking good. I was regarded with suspicion as a newcomer in the ABA and that affected their perception of Banjo as well. He’d gone along with someone like me rather than take the blazer-saluting route to amateur success. I was right to be pessimistic.

  ‘No,’ said Kevin, ‘he’s obviously got some character flaw. I can’t do anything for the Olympics. Not with his record – he’s been disqualified twice now.’

  Some months later I watched the ABA heavyweight title fight at Wembley. It was won by Frank Bruno – proving that he could, after all, take big men’s licks – and I stopped for a chat with Kevin Hickey afterwards. Bruno was still very young.

  ‘You still need a heavyweight, don’t you?’ I said. ‘He’s not anything much.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ said Kevin. And he didn’t send Bruno to the Olympics either. I decided my next move would be to turn Banjo professional.

  George Francis said he would back me. But I didn’t have a manager’s licence and I knew that the regulations of professional boxing meant that I didn’t have a chance of getting one quickly. I asked George if he would manage Banjo for a year. My energy was better spent in getting a licence to be a trainer and second – the official ringside attendant to a fighter. What I didn’t know was that the board which was to interview me for my licence included the man who brought down the Krays, Nipper Read. He was going to be very pleased to see me again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Boxing with Banksy

  The envelope from the boxing authorities should have contained my trainer’s licence. But no, it was a letter. They wanted me to attend a second interview. This next board was a much more intimidating prospect and I stared down a long table packed with serious faces, including a stipendiary magistrate, crime writer and solicitor James Morton (Frankie Frasier’s biographer, whose subjects have also included the Krays) and Kray nemesis Nipper Read. This wasn’t really an interview at all. The point was to inform me that after ‘careful consideration’ they had
decided against endorsing the decision of the regional board to grant me a licence.

  The key factor was that I knew the Kray twins.

  ‘So did everybody,’ I said.

  Yes, they said, but ‘you knew them better than most people’.

  They might as well have said, ‘You can’t have a licence – good day. Get out.’ Nipper Read had seen me acquitted in the Krays’ case and walk out a free man. Now it looked as if he had finally got his revenge.

  The decision was a disaster for my plans for Banjo. I was now not allowed to enter the ring with him during a fight. But I was the only one who could motivate him, get him training, keep him focused. Nobody else was able to cope but I was willing to stand up to him. We had arguments, I’d shout at him if it was necessary and I wasn’t intimidated. I felt I’d got to know something of what drove Banjo and as his trainer I could bring him on. That belief was what prompted me to apply for a licence in the first place.

  Our campaign was given a boost by journalist Jeff Powell, who did a brilliant full page in The Daily Mail: IS THIS BRITAIN’S ANSWER TO MUHAMMAD ALI?

  When I was preparing for the first interview with the regional board, George Francis coached me through the key questions. A lot of them related to the well-being of the fighter in the ring. Common-sense stuff. I had to know about cut eyes and the list of equipment trainers were obliged to keep in their corner of the ring. Obvious stuff – two gum shields, two pairs of shorts, Vaseline and associated items, but there were also a couple of trick questions that nobody could guess from watching the sport on TV or even from being ringside. The authorities didn’t give out rulebooks until the applicant won their licence so you really needed a contact inside boxing to lend you a copy.

  The first interview, the one before the encounter with Nipper Read, had taken place at the BBBC Southern Area Council and had centred on my current work. It seemed straightforward enough.

  ‘Are you associated with Wilfried Sauerland?’ This was a German promoter who had started to work over in the UK.

  ‘No, George Francis,’ I said.

  ‘And your fighter, is this the one who had all the newspaper publicity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My agreement seemed to satisfy them and the licence was confirmed there and then – or so I thought. George got his manager’s contract for the year and we were all set until that second board meeting stopped us dead. Nipper Read eventually became head of the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) but at the interview he didn’t say much to me. Morton, who was a solicitor and also wrote Read’s biography, did the talking for them.

  It would take me a long time to recover from this knock to my ambitions. What I later discovered was the Kray connection had just been a smokescreen, as the granting of a trainer’s licence to Jimmy Tibbs proved. He got it soon after being paroled. The real worry for the board was that Banjo would do better than Frank Bruno and that was what was disturbing some very influential figures behind the scenes. Nipper Read’s victory merely fitted in with the board’s wider concerns.

  The full story came out after the actions of a cartel of promoters were later exposed in The Sunday Times. Against boxing rules, Mickey Duff, Mike Barrett, Terry Lawless and Jarvis Astaire had come together to ruthlessly control Wembley, the Albert Hall and most of the boxers. They had their eyes on Bruno as well.

  A fella named Bert McCarthy – who already had a manager’s licence – was involved in a court case with them over managing Bruno. When McCarthy lost the case, Bruno became one of their stable. Bruno went on to become the main attraction at the Albert Hall for a long time to come and eventually heavyweight champion of the world. The activities of the cartel provided a major source of income for the board – at least until Henry Simmons, Duff’s brother-in-law, stole incriminating papers from their safe and sold them to The Sunday Times.

  At the time we had no idea that any of this was going on, though I had seen something similar in Fleet Street’s treatment of the sport. I was at The Wellington when Jimmy Young came to spar before his top of the bill fight against John L Gardner at Wembley. Young was at The Wellington straight off the plane – though I don’t know why he bothered. He had beaten George Foreman on points and he was accompanied by his trainer George Benton, but he’d been drinking on the flight and he was practically falling asleep in the dressing room while they were getting him ready. It looked like his crew had seen this before, though it was new to me – this was a world-class heavyweight fighter and he was hungover something shocking. They were having to pull his boots on for him.

  He was attempting to spar when big-shot promoter Harry Levine arrived, along with a load of sports writers from the nationals. They all lined up to watch while Levine stood on the ring apron. None of them could have missed the condition of the main attraction. Young was being told what to do but he was just covering up and blocking the punches. It was like he was being punched into sobriety – I’ve seen that happen since.

  One of the reporters called up, ‘He’s not very fit is he, Harry?’ Harry said, ‘Did you enjoy your lunch? Did you eat well? Did you drink well? You should fucking worry about his fitness.’

  It was clear who was setting the agenda. Though as an aside, Jimmy was particularly lucky – not only was the press on his side, but the fight was postponed for a fortnight. He got fit and knocked out John L Gardner.

  So I’d seen the press at work and now I’d seen the promoters. But in the end it didn’t matter to Banjo, who was pulling the strings. All he could see was my failure. He lost confidence and began to think I was some kind of shyster. George wasn’t ready to give up and suggested that someone else worked in Banjo’s corner and we just get him fighting. There was a show coming up at the York Hall in Bethnal Green, which was promoted by Mickey Duff. I took on a batch of tickets for £1,000 as a mark of my confidence in Banjo turning pro. But just as it looked as if we were getting back on the road, George took me aside.

  ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, son,’ he said. He always called me ‘son’. He had spoken with Al Phillips, an ex-boxer who was the matchmaker, in charge of ensuring the fighters would go well together. ‘I said to him, “I’ve got a heavyweight, big guy, quite exciting. He’ll take £1,000 worth of tickets for starters.” He told me he couldn’t find anything for me. So I said, “Look, get the ratings out and we’ll start at the bottom and phone everyone until we find someone who’s willing to take him. He’s never had a professional fight – we’ll find someone.” You know how Al Phillips has a temper. He said, “I’m fucking well telling ya – he’s blacklisted! He don’t fight here, and he don’t fight anywhere! He does… not… box. Do you fucking well understand?” What could I do? They’re like that – they’re terrible.’

  The cartel had the fight game so tightly controlled that it was impossible to get around them but they were eventually forced into an out of court settlement with some of Terry Lawless’ fighters over their purse money and the fact that the cartel was against board of control regulations. But the board knew about this and still let it happen. I had no idea what I could do next. I shared my woes with ex Blind Beggar publican Patsy Quill. He could see that I was so angry I could barely speak. It was all so unfair.

  Patsy, who was able to be more objective about the situation, said, ‘If it will help you, Mick, I’ll have a chat with Jimmy and see what we can do to help.’

  Jimmy was a friend of entrepreneur Gerald Ronson and a business partner of Bobby Moore. He had a bit of weight about him. And having been a successful amateur boxer himself, Jimmy was interested. He wanted to know who I knew in the game and how to go about it.

  I had been watching the sport as I moved through it and knew of Paddy Byrne, the Brighton-based matchmaker for a former promoter called Jack Solomons. Jack wasn’t involved with the cartel. Any employee of his was likely to be receptive to an approach by us. Before retiring, Solomons was said to have called the cartel ‘gangsters without guns’.

  Jimmy, one of those people who m
ake things happen, jumped into his Rolls Royce and drove down to Paddy in Brighton. They reached an agreement and then set up a fully staffed office. We hired the Assembly Hall in Walthamstow and found an ex-ABA heavyweight champion named John Rafferty. Banjo beat him on points. And he kept on winning, though he would still only respond if he was threatened rather than come out looking for his opponent.

  Jimmy was meanwhile busy getting friendly with everyone he met in the business and did the first seven promotions for Banjo at the Assembly Rooms. That left only me frustrated that I couldn’t do everything I wanted for Banjo. Nobody liked a winner when they were so dull and I couldn’t be in his corner to get him going. If only I could be up there I knew I would be able to wake him up. I’d have got him so riled up that he would have gone for it.

  Paddy, with his amiable Irish tones, only said, ‘Would you do this for me, Banjo, please?’

  What Banjo needed was an East End terrier, goading him on. We needed that training licence.

  Mike Barrett proved to be the most approachable of the cartel. He ran the Albert Hall and wasn’t quite so much into controlling boxing as the others. Jimmy found that he was quite friendly and at last we were able to get Banjo on their bills. He was invited to box at the world sporting club at The Grosvenor House Hotel against Andy Palmer, a double ABA champion heavyweight who was controlled by Mickey Duff. Andy was a big, mixed race guy who had beaten all his opponents inside the distance, meaning before a decision had to be reached by the judges. He made the mistake of frightening Banjo in the first round, who responded by knocking him spark out. He clearly didn’t like the look of Andy. It was a very convincing win but the result for us was that the promoters were even less keen to have Banjo fight Bruno. They might even have tried to poach Banjo from us but they knew my reputation.