by Paul Sykes
He was sitting on the middle chesterfield scraping a corn, completely absorbed and I didn't think he was listening until he said, 'Tha's got to feight Gardener. Ah've seen him on t' telly an tha'll do 'im. Get thisen over t' telly place in Leeds and tell em. Tell 'em tha wants to feight for t' British title.' No wonder the old feller called Norm his 'solicitor'.
The minute I got back to Ginger's I rang YTV and asked to speak to Roger Greenwood, one of the presenters of 'Yorksport' on Friday nights. When I told him what I wanted to do he agreed to let me put my case on the very next programme. Manny couldn't believe it when I told him. When it finally sunk in he demanded to be present, him and Tommy. They would back up all I said.
'I'm the number one contender but since Wilson and the fight in Blackpool nobody wants to know. They think I use a wooden club like a caveman because I come from Wakefield. Well I'll fight Gardener in his bedroom and his mother can be the referee.' Manny or Tommy couldn't add anything to that and weren't invited to speak.
Nothing happened, no letters to the papers, no demands at all from anywhere, and then Radio Leeds wanted me to be their castaway on Desert Island Discs. Some feller from Oxbridge wanted to make a date to record the programme but I couldn't afford to hang about. I was already into Wendy's money.
Between Mozart's Frenchhorn concerto, Verdi's 'Chorus of the Hebrew slaves,' a few Glen Miller and Ella Fitzgerald records, I stated my case into the mike and still nothing happened. Wendy's money was dwindling rapidly. I'd smashed the car doing thirty when
I'd skidded on a patch of ice. A patch of ice I wouldn't have noticed at ninety, and now had a car on hire Wendy was paying for, and she was indirectly keeping Cath as well. I was desperate, really desperate, when Manny phoned to say he wanted see me in the 'Beehive' cafe on Dickson Road. It was very important. I'd to be there at 10 in the morning.
He was dressed in his arcade overcoat and sitting next to Brian London, the ex-British champion, drinking a cup of tea. He lit an Embassy, twitched his nose, cleared his throat.
'You've been nominated to fight for the British title.'
And no thanks to you, I thought instantly.
'It depends on the television if I can bid for the fight,' he moaned.
'You see whatever the TV people pay I can safely bid. And a bit more on top of course. Do you see Paul?'
'No Manny, I don't.'
He glanced at Brian, the bar, swallowed, and said with a kick-start nose twitch, 'You see, a title fight is up for bids. Every promoter submits a tender and the highest bidder gets it.'
'Do a deal with Yorkshire telly Manny, and charge £25 for seats in the theatre club.'
'We'll see, we'll see.'
'So how long will it be. How long before I'm fighting?'
'In the next ninety days.'
He introduced Brian into the conversation then and tried his best to
give me the impression he'd arranged Brian's two World title fights, never thinking for a second I knew who really had been the force behind him. If I finished up with what Brian had I'd be satisfied; a nice living and a beautiful stone mansion overlooking the park, and to do that I'd have to be fit. I didn't give a toss who promoted the fight, it was the next one that concerned me.
As the British and Commonwealth champion I'd have the standing
to fight for the World title, and a shot at the European would be a certainty. I'd be on real money. I had to get fit. The best condition of my
life. It was time to be a recluse and I must begin now.
'I'm sure you'll sort something out Manny,' I said, standing to
leave, sick of his careful stinginess and aching to let the old feller and
Norm know. Del and Ronnie, and Cath. Fucking hell, what was I
going to do about Cath and Wendy? I couldn't possibly get fit to fight
Gardener living at Ginger's. I needed the chapel now. I'd have to go home to train. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving Wendy and living with Cath. For two full days I couldn't come to a conclusion for weighing the odds. I would have to go back and Cath would have to go. I'd sort her out later when I had the title. She wouldn't like being ousted by Wendy. She might not even want to go and then what would I do? There was only one way to find out.
It would be about 4 o'clock in the afternoon when we pulled into the yard behind the house. Ron, to take the car back and driving, Wendy and me in the back seat.
'Now hang on here Ron and when Cath comes out take her to her mother's.'
'Leave me out,' he protested quickly. 'Don't involve me. I've enough problems. It's nothing to do with me.'
'Hang on here and shut up moaning. I've enough fucking trouble as it is.' He owed me a favour or two anyway.
I'd asked him to do some awful things on my behalf over the years but nothing like this involving a mother and baby. He would help loosen the sting a bit. Explain to Cath my long term motives and give her some hope. Let her know she wasn't out of the game by a long way, just resting for a while. Until this fight was over. Besides, I couldn't train with Adam in the house. Ron was the most diplomatic, likeable feller in the world and Cath thought him wonderful.
'Have I to come with you?' Wendy asked.
'Yeah. I want her to know.' Nothing underhand and sneaky now.
Cath came into the kitchen from the living room the instant she heard the back door. She saw Wendy standing behind and knew what I was about to say. She stood perfectly still looking at me, her black eyes glittering with hate, waiting for me to speak.
'Ron's in the car Cath,' I said evenly. 'He's waiting to run you to your Mother's.'
She brushed past and ran upstairs. She was opening and closing drawers packing her things. Wendy was in the kitchen and I was sitting on the settee with a feeling I'd never experienced before. There was a reel of memories running before my eyes of Cath; the gymkhana, Rhyl, the pleasure beach, shouting from the ringside seats, the abortion, running across the playground, one after the other. And then I thought of the luck she'd brought me. I'd always been lucky
with Cath. She slammed the car door and then came into the living room for Adam and his things. I wasn't helping her move out and if she wanted to stay she could but she hadn't argued or stood her ground. If she had I'd have gone back to Ginger's for a re-think. A minute later the car drove off.
She hadn't looked in my direction once.
'Do you want a cup of tea?' Wendy asked from the kitchen door.
'No love. Just leave me for a bit.'
My insides were writhing, a pain I'd never had before. Wendy didn't help. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't be feeling like this.
It seemed a lifetime before Ron returned and when he did he said Cath hadn't said a word apart from thanks when he'd dropped her off. Not a single word. Wendy made him a pot of tea and by the time he was ready to leave I had myself under control. All I had to do was get fit and win the title. I had to be ruthless and train with the single-minded dedication needed to win. Everything depended on winning this fight. If I lost it would mean fiddling about for the rest of my life trying to get a living. Win the title and I could make it right with everybody.
After a couple of weeks in the chapel I was right smack on schedule and improving daily when Tommy told me the fight was to be held at the Empire Pool, Wembley, and the promoter was Harry Levene. He'd won the bidding for the fight with £25,100, to be split 60-40 between Gardener and me: Manny had bid less than half the amount. It was to be held on June 26th, in nine weeks time. With a date I could plan my schedule to peak. I was spot-on anyway and building up the intensity when Manny turned up one night in his Cadillac and brimming with news.
He was sitting on the settee with his hands on his knees, leaning toward me. He didn't want me to miss a word he said.
'I've got the fight you wanted,' he beamed.
'But Tommy said Harry Levene put in the highest bid.'
'Not that fight, not the one with Gardener. I'm talking about a fight that will put you in direct line for a sho
t at the World title. Holmes, not Gardener. We'll go in somewhere big like the Free Trade Hall . . .'
'Hang on a minute, who is it?'
'A big lump of a feller. Got a fair record but he's been on the floor in every fight he's had. Against a puncher like you he won't want to know. Yes, we'll have to go in somewhere really big.'
'Who is it Manny, what's his name?'
'Leroy Jones, but you won't know him. Down every fight. Got where he has through manipulations. You know how it is Paul.'
He carried on spieling while I considered what he'd said. Leroy
Jones, 6ft Sin, 17 stone, 33 fights , 33 wins, 32 K.O.s.
Third in all the World ratings. A sensation. Right money at last.
'How much will I be on Manny?'
'Two grand. But I can put you on a percentage of the gate. '
'Is the other feller on a percentage or a straight purse?'
'No, no, these fellers want a guarantee and they don't come cheap.'
'How much Manny?'
'Thirty grand, and all his expenses, but it's the chance you've been after. This fight will put you right there.'
'Right Manny. Give him £27,000 and me five and I'll fight.'
'There's no guarantee the tickets will sell Paul. I can't give him any less. I'll put you on a percentage. '
'No. I'll stay where I am. I don't want the fight.'
He tried to reason by saying I'd have the advantage of two irons in the fire and nothing to lose but I wasn't having any so after ten minutes he left.
Why should Leroy Jones fight me, 6th in Europe, unless it was money for old rope? And just supposing I beat him, I'd be third in the World and I'd still have to fight Gardener.
Put my world rating on the line for peanuts. If I did fight Jones and lost I'd still fight Gardener but when I won I'd be automatically disqualified from fighting for the World title because I'd lost to Jones. Win, lose or draw I was in a no-win situation. Beat Gardener and then fight Jones made sense but not the other way round. And why had Manny suddenly come up with this fight now? Why couldn't it have been Jones instead of Tooker? Thinking about it prevented me from training with total concentration for a couple of days and then I saw Cath outside Townley Road chip shop.
Kay acted the go-between and came back with all kinds of tales about the restrictions being enforced by Cath' s parents to stop her
from seeing me. If she did she would be out on the street. It took over a week before the time and place could be arranged. Two o'clock Saturday afternoon at Townley Road chip shop where 19 months earlier she had climbed from the car to tell her parents she was pregnant. She came round the corner from Hazeldene Road pushing the pram as if its wheels were locked. She wasn't clever academically but she was clever enough to know I'd worked out what she'd said on her birthday had been lies. She knew her schoolgirl body had altered into a middle-aged woman's. She knew the hold she had wasn't there now.
She'd turned up with Adam to let me know I'd broken her heart and she could never love me again. We walked up Dewsbury Road to the 'Malt' and then back along Broadway, with me pushing the pram and her explaining how she was feeling. It wouldn't have been so bad if Wendy hadn't been standing behind leering over my shoulder at her. She'd smirked Cath said, and I thought of the confrontation at the bottom of Greaves A venue and wondered if they regarded me as the prize for the winner. She wasn't at my beck and call and from now on she would do exactly what she wanted. It was over between us. No, she wouldn't stop me seeing Adam, but her parents hadn't to know. She would bring him with her when it suited her and that was final.
It satisfied me. I didn't want any pressure at this stage from anywhere and the only place where I got any was at the gym from Tommy.
The training in the chapel was the foundation stone on which my fitness was built. In the gym in Manchester Tommy wanted me to punch this bag, that bag, skip, shadow-box, but I conserved my energy for the all-out assault in the mornings. He urged and cajoled every night but I ignored him and just used the sparring and bag to gauge my distance and perfect my punching.
With less than seven weeks remaining Manny turned up on the doorstep again one night with another proposition. It was up to me, but if I wanted I could fly with him the day after tomorrow to America and train in a camp with Leon Spinks, and get in the best condition of my life. A magnificent part of the world and I'd enjoy myself. It wouldn't cost me a penny. He would pay all my expenses, right up to the fight. When he said that, I decided to go. There was
ample time to return and put right anything which didn't suit me and I might just learn something new. The way Leon had battered Ali required some very special training indeed. Wendy would be all right on her own she said proudly. She wasn't at all scared of living on her own. She had Del, Ron, Norm and as a very last resort she could ring Tommy or Manny if she had any trouble.
* * * *
The British Airways stewardesses were horrors compared to Wendy, in fact Marion would have fitted in nicely.
It wasn't the first time I'd flown. I'd flown from Hanover to Berlin and back when I'd been 16, and watched the propellers out of the window going round. This was a jumbo jet from Heathrow to Washington, then Detroit, change planes and then out to somewhere called Traverse City in a Tristar. Manny hired a car at the airfield and drove ten or twelve miles in the dark until we pulled up outside a hotel in the middle of a wood. We were about 5 miles south of a town called Cadillac, a town with one street and a few shops either side. Manny said he was thinking about living here permanently like the old feller said he was thinking about swimming the Channel. Before I had time to get my bearings I'd been allocated a room and ushered to bed. I would be going for a run first thing in the morning. The trip had taken 15 hours from bed to bed and the watch Cath had bought me a year ago last Christmas, a watch which kept perfect time and I'd not taken off, had stopped. It was a terrible sign. It was as if she had suddenly cut me out of her life. Her broken heart had finally snapped in two. It took me hours to get to sleep.
A little, elderly black feller opened the door about 8 o'clock, gave me a pleasant smile and the instruction to be at the front door in five minutes wearing my running kit. There were four of us on the road. Leon, another heavyweight, and a little feller, a featherweight or a lightweight. We set off in a bunch but after a mile, the other heavyweight had dropped out of sight and the little feller had dropped back too. Leon pounded on, running with the same relentless rhythm he'd fought Ali. The road, an asphalt strip wide enough for two cars abreast, meandered up and down hills between dense woods. I hadn't time to take much notice for maintaining the pace, monitoring the readout, and trying to regulate my energy. I hadn't a clue how far we
were going or what was to come later so it was vital not to leave all my energy on the road. It was the first time I'd done any running since the lanes round Ginger's, and I had to be careful.
Leon finished over 3 minutes in front of me and nearly 20 in front of the others. It had to be 5 miles I reckoned but I was wrong. It was 3 miles to the end of the drive and 3 miles back. The drive belonged to the hotel. After a shower I was told to come to the dining room for breakfast. Manny was all smiles I'd done so well on the run. He didn't think I was so fit. He was sitting in a place of honour at the breakfast table with the three black fellers I'd seen in Leon's and Hutchins's corner back in the stadium when Conteh had fought. The self-same little mob. There was enough food to feed fifty on the table and there were only ten of us. I couldn't eat, not yet. What I needed was a nutritional drink; eggs, milk and brown clear Mexican honey like I usually had until my metabolism had slowed down and then some solid food in a hour or so. At 4 o'clock I still hadn't eaten and it was time to go across to another building belonging to the hotel which had been converted into a gym. All the equipment was brand new and perfect.
Leon sparred with the other heavyweight, a Syrian, with a ten fight, ten wins record, all KOs. He was useless. Waiting my turn to spar, gloved up and ready, I thought he must
have fought drunks or pensioners. He was a big novice with one punch. A right-hand that came over as though he was bowling at cricket, and with all the warning in the world. Any boxer worth his salt would be on a bus going home before it landed. After two rounds it was my turn but not with Leon. It was me and the Syrian. Every time he revved up, I knocked him off balance with the left hand. Two rounds we sparred and that was it for the first day. The man in charge of the camp, a stout black feller, ex-all-American pro footballer and ex-New York cop, a feller called Hank Groomes, said I'd done enough for the first day and to rest until the morning. Tea was no different to breakfast and it was imperative I shifted plenty to replace what I'd used but I couldn't. I could only eat enough to fill me. All the years of living on a starvation diet in the nick had limited what my stomach could hold to that of the average ten-year-old. To overcome the problem I would eat a little bit about every 3 hours at home but I wasn't at home. I stayed at the table though; there was too much being said for me to leave. I
didn't like being in the dark and the way the conversation was being held nobody wanted to enlighten me. Just turned ten I went to my room to look at the last school photos of Cath and Wendy; already I was aching to see them, and go over the facts.
The hotel was called 'The Caberfea Ski Lodge' and the dense wood was the Manastee national forest, a place about the size of Yorkshire. Leon was in training to fight Jerri Coetzee, in a final eliminator for the World title. His fight was four days before mine. The promoters of the fight, nobody mentioned who they were, had advanced $50,000 for training expenses and with it Hank Groomes had rented the entire hotel and turned it into the camp. It was a Swiss chalet type of building with 80 double bedrooms with balconies. It was beautiful now in the summer with only our party in residence but I wouldn't fancy the place in winter when the ski lift would be clanking and daft skiers all over the place. The last thought I had before I fell asleep was to beat Leon on the run in the morning.
