STREETFIGHTERS
First published in May 2002 by Milo Books Ltd
This paperback edition published in 2004
Copyright © Julian Davies 2002
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN 1 903854-27-X
eISBN 978-1-90847-926-6
Typeset in Sabon by Avon DataSet Ltd,
Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman, Reading
MILO BOOKS LTD
The Old Weighbridge
Station Road
Wrea Green
Lancashire PR4 2PH
[email protected]
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Preface
Richard Horsley Hard Hitter From Hartlepool
Malcolm Price Legendary Welsh Streetfighter
Alek Penarski Bolton’s Boxing and Streetfighting Champ
Bartley Gorman World-famous King of the Gypsies
Ray Hills London Hard Man and Unlicensed Boxer
Andre Martin Coventry’s Martial Arts Giant-killer
Don Lewis Fairground Booth Veteran
Brian Cockerill Stockton’s Streetfighting Giant
Henry Francis The Head-butter Supreme
Steve Lote Birmingham’s Fighting Doorman
Tyerone Houston Bareknuckler Turned Martial Artist
John “Lamby” Hatfield Leicester Fighting Man from the Fifties
Billy Preece Warrior from the School of Hard Knocks
Greg Hall Doorman and Real Combat Specialist
Darren Pullman Hard Life of a Swansea Hard Man
Shawn Cooper Midlands Fighting Champion
Decca Simpkin Derby’s Mean Machine
Nigel Sullivan Respected Trained Fighter
Billy Cribb The Tarmac Warrior
Jamie O’Keefe From Boot Boy to Black Belt
Ivor Smith A Brutal Fighting Life
Ernie Bewick Sunderland’s Rocky Marciano
DEDICATED TO
The late Bartley Gorman, King of the Gypsies and a true gentleman
Author Julian Davies (left) with the late Bartley Gorman
Julian Davies is an ex-heavyweight boxer who now trains and coaches youngsters in Merthry Tydfil, South Wales. His fascination with fighters goes back as far as he can remember. He once entered the Hardman UK fight contest just one week after being discharged from a coronary care ward and won his bout by knockout. He is webmaster for the unlicensed fighting website www.unlicensed2000.com and daily corresponds with fighters from all over the world, recording their battle stories before they are lost forever.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THERE ARE A few good friends that I would like to thank who have helped me over the past year or so. I don’t think this book could have happened without them.
First, there’s Anthony and Steven Thomas, who helped me right from the start. They travelled the country with me, Anthony navigating and Steven sharing the driving on the long journeys. I’m not the best of drivers and almost killed us all many times, most memorably when travelling back from interviewing Richard Horsley and one of my rear tyres decided it had had enough and committed suicide in spectacular fashion. If anyone has ever had a blow-out at 80 miles per hour in the third lane of a motorway, they will know how it felt.
My mate Dav Owens looked over my interviews and was always there when I needed him. The author Steve Richards and the fighter-writer Billy Cribb, who both said I could do this book if I put my mind to it and got up off my arse, were also an inspiration.
I owe a special debt to my new friends Richard Horsley and Vicky Simpkin (Decca’s wife). I must have had about 300 telephone conversations with each of them, and their sense of humour always made paying the phone bill worthwhile.
To all the people mentioned above and to every fighter featured in this book, thank you all so very much. I regard you all as valued and trusted friends.
PREFACE
MY FASCINATION WITH fighters dates back to my childhood. As a young boy, I would hear tales of the heroic gladiators who met on the mountain tops of my native South Wales to fight bareknuckle. Sometimes they fought for money, more often for sheer pride. Their contests were illegal, their names whispered in the pubs and social clubs of the valleys and mining villages. The details of these “mountain fighters” have been lost in the mists of time, but the seed was sown and my love of fighting has been there ever since.
The idea of writing a book came about after I had started running an internet website (www.unlicensed2000.com) detailing the stories of a variety of fighters: not famous-name boxers (who get more than enough exposure in the media) but unlicensed boxers, martial artists, gypsy pugilists, minders, doormen and, of course, streetfighters. I was constantly being emailed by fight fans from all around the world asking where they could read more about the men I had introduced, and I realised that many of their stories had remained unknown outside their home localities until I had released them to a wider audience through the site.
After announcing my intention to write a book about them, I appealed for the names of the hardest men from the hometowns of the visitors to my website. The floodgates opened. The trail led me all over the motorway network, from Hartlepool in the North East to Swansea in the South West. I met and interviewed men whose experiences shocked me. There were sagas of appalling hardship, tragic childhoods, life-changing moments, pride and glory. In the majority of cases, the men I interviewed were strangers to me at the time of our first meeting. Just as often, when I left we had become firm friends.
And so Streetfighters came into being, after almost two years of research that involved travelling the length and breadth of the UK to meet each fighter and record an account of their lives and battles. I must be careful not to make this sound a chore because in truth it never was. Each of the men whose life tales you are about to read gave me the warmest of welcomes and the highest level of hospitality when I visited them. I must also say that this is not just another tome in which the deeds of “hard men” are recounted by the author. It is an insight into the lives of respected fighting men in their own words. Here they talk to you, the reader, direct: and you will find their words hit home with as much power as their punches.
The final selection of fighters was difficult to make, but I was adamant that certain criteria had to be met: all of those featured had to have good stories to tell, they had to be well respected as fighting men, and, most importantly to me, they must not be regarded as bullies. These are the hallmarks of truly hard men. As with any group this size, there are different personalities involved, but the common thread is the honesty and sincerity with which they spoke. No punches were pulled and events that were sometimes very difficult for the fighters themselves to talk about were relayed to me as candidly as was possible, so that an accurate account of their lives could be recorded. Not one of the men came across as a braggart, glorying in the violence that has coloured their lives. Most have just accepted that it was the hand they were dealt in life and they had to play it the best they could. Streetfighters will, I am sure, have you rolling with laughter and close to tears in the space of a few pages.
Out there, even in the 21st century, are men who carve out their reputations, earn their money and define themselves with thei
r fists. They may seem to many people brutal, a throwback to rougher times. Many of my subjects were shadowy figures, underground legends unknown to the wider public. But they exist. They are real and they cannot be ignored. I could go on and on telling you about each of them, but I won’t . . . I’ll let the fighters tell you themselves.
Julian Davies
RICHARD HORSLEY
Hartlepool
A well respected ex-boxer with a reputation that precedes him, Richy can be one of the nicest guys you’ll meet, or your worst enemy – however you want to play it. His sledgehammer right hand has stopped many a wannabe bully in his tracks. In the North East you have to be tough to survive and they don’t come much tougher than this guy.
MY GRANDAD, WHO died in 1973, was an excellent amateur boxer back in the Thirties and Forties. His ring name was Kid Morris. He held the decision over Teddy Gardner [British and European flyweight champion] three times. My grandad was a chimney sweep. Even today, when I look back I imagine him covered from head to toe in soot. You’d swear he worked down the pits.
I was born in 1964 at Cameron’s Hospital in Hartlepool, which was knocked down about ten years ago. It’s now a private housing estate. My mother was a housewife and my dad a roamer; he travelled all over the place working. He tried his hand at any job, from pipe-layer to working on the docks. I remember him telling me that on one of the jobs he had to sleep in the barn with the shire horses at night. In his younger days he could have a tear-up if he wanted to: he became known as “Blood Horsley” because of his fighting. He got kidney damage in the army and was medically discharged. In later years he had kidney failure, and died in 1975 before a kidney could be found for him. It was the worst day of my life.
My cousin plays in the rock band Iron Maiden. His name is Janick Gers. They called him Janick because his father was Polish. His mother was a Horsley before she married. My cousin’s a tidy guy; he once told me that he thought the world of my dad. People from Hartlepool are sometimes called “Monkey Hangers”. The name dates back to the Napoleonic wars. Story has it that a French galleon was shipwrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. The sole survivor was a small monkey that clung to some wreckage that drifted ashore. The monkey was dressed in a miniature French uniform and the local crofters that lived in Hartlepool were illiterate and thought the babbling monkey was a French spy. They must have got confused with the term “powder monkeys”, who were small boys whose job it was to supply gunpowder to the French gunners. The crofters conducted a speedy trial on the beach and found the poor monkey guilty of being a French spy. The monkey was sentenced to death and promptly hanged (poor bastard). So there you have it: I, like everyone else in Hartlepool, am a Monkey Hanger.
I was always big as a young lad, so when it came to fighting it was always me who got stuck into it. I was never a bully and never got bullied as a kid. Whenever it came on top I’d think, fuck it, and bang! I’d hit the fucker and the rest would stay clear. I got into boxing as a 13-year-old kid. If I wasn’t in the gym then I was out having a laugh with my mates. About this time I got my first court appearance along with four of my mates. Someone had suggested going potato picking to earn some extra money. We walk six miles and get to the farmer’s field and there’s nobody there. Where are all the tattie pickers? Not a tattie picker in sight, just this great big haystack. Well, we were only kids and this haystack looked like one of them bouncy castles that you get at fairgrounds. The guys at the bottom of the haystack were met with bales of hay dropped on their heads. We had great fun wrecking this haystack for about an hour. All of a sudden farmers and farmhands surrounded us. We made a run for it but got caught. We got taken to the local police station and got bail (no pun intended). We came back the next week to see if we had to go to court. Just our fucking luck, the farmer was a local magistrate and wouldn’t settle out of court. They did us for criminal damage. When they called out our middle names in court we all laughed like idiots and the magistrate gave us a roasting. We had to pay £6 compensation and got a conditional discharge for a year.
I was going boxing on and off for a couple of years before I started fighting. I had twelve fights as a light-heavyweight and boxed some good fighters. I boxed Crawford Ashley in only my sixth fight: he was British champion at the time, and had over 40 fights. Well, he stopped me. He was a big puncher and hit me with some of the hardest punches I’ve ever been hit with. He was a knockout specialist. I remember he caught me with a big right hand straight to the throat; I couldn’t swallow for days and my throat was sore for weeks.
At one stage of my life I did a few months in Durham Detention Centre. I was convicted of causing criminal damage. Well, I told the judge I wouldn’t pay compensation, so off they sent me. Detention centres were rough, horrible places. The regime was just like an army boot camp, with physical and mental pressure. Most people would pick prison over these places. The idea was along the lines of a quick, sharp shock. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. To be employed there you had to be a pure bastard or you just weren’t cut out for the job. When I turned up, the worst screw in the place marched me off to his office. He liked to push the new lads around when they first came in. He screamed at me, “Get a move on,” and pushed me hard. I didn’t move any faster so he went apeshit. First he banged my head against the wall, then the punches started. I just rode and rolled off his punches so they had no effect on me whatsoever. People were shocked to see that he couldn’t hurt or frighten me, it was fuck all to me. I just kept answering, “Yes sir, no sir.” Thing is, you couldn’t fight back or things could be made really hard for you.
At one point they made us all line up. I can hear this growling in my ear and I’m thinking, what the fuck’s that? I turn around and there’s this massive lad growling at me. I nearly burst out laughing at the stupid twat. I look up at the lad and politely inform him, “Who the hell are you growling at, you stupid prick? Growl like that again and I’ll rip your fucking head off, do you understand?” He nodded yes and stopped. You should have seen the look on the lad’s face. I bet that was the first time anyone ever put him in his place. Within a few days and a few arguments the word went around that I was the best fighter in the place, and I got myself a cushy job in the stores. I sort of jumped the queue to get it, mind you. I loved the training and when I came out I felt so fit and strong I was unbreakable, and couldn’t wait to get back to the boxing gym.
While I was learning to box there was this geezer there, he was a few years older than me. He was short, squat, powerful and covered in tattoos. He’d had a couple of fights and then packed it in. He thought he was a right Jack the Lad, a tough guy, wiseguy, etcetera. He had got a 14-year stretch for armed robbery so I didn’t see him for quite a few years, just now and again when he got out. It was 1995 and a group of us were going from pub to pub and he was one of us. The more drinks he was getting down his neck the more he was getting on everyone’s nerves. The guy was shouting about how hard he was, being a right pain. He shouts to me, “Oi you, outside.”
Now I thought the prick was joking but he wasn’t. “I’m the best fourteen stone you’ll come across,” he screamed. Off comes my coat and we step outside. The pub had a glass front so everyone could see us. Someone shouts out, “Go on, do him Richy.” He came straight at me and BANG, I catch him with a short left hook with all my power behind it. He folded over like a ten-bob note. What an anti-climax. I bent over him and smashed him about four times with my right hand and he was on another planet. He was still sleeping when the ambulance took him fifteen minutes later with the oxygen mask on. His jaw was broke in four places, so they had to put a steel plate in with screws to fix it. I had no sympathy for him. He had brought it on himself with his big loud mouth.
I drifted in and out of boxing for a while and made a comeback as a heavyweight. Well, I fought six more times, winning five. I had too many distractions and packed in the boxing. I started working the doors and I was fighting all the time. People know me not only as a fighter but also as a tid
y guy. I always treat people with respect and have never stole a thing in my life. I once got charged with theft but like I said, I don’t steal. I borrowed a friend’s card to get some videos out – this was back in 1985. Well, for some reason the films never got returned. The shop called the police and I was pulled in. The shop had just installed a video camera and of course I was on it. To get it all over and done with I pleaded guilty. The judge remanded me for ten days. I was gobsmacked: just my luck, locked in Durham Jail for 23 hours a day over some stupid videos. After the ten days were up, I was taken back to court and there was a different judge who couldn’t believe that I had been remanded. I was also fined £300. The worst part was missing the birth of my daughter Donna. She was nine days old before I even knew she was born. I still don’t know what happened to the videos. If I do ever find them I may take them back to the shop – could you imagine how much I now owe in fines!
Back in ’92, ’93, I was living with this girl and, of course, working the doors. There was this local geezer, a well-respected, right hard guy, who fought for money. If you had any trouble with him you knew you were going to be in a fight. He was a big powerful man and nobody wanted trouble with him. Now the girl I was with was working in a different nightclub to me, and he was coming in and trying to tap her up. After a few weeks she told me this, and that he had been saying, “What’s Richy going to do to me? He can do nowt with me.” I was stewing with this for a while when I went to a bar I worked at one afternoon. Now I wasn’t working that day and I knew he would come in. I just wanted to get the job done with him and get out. I knew he would have a crowd with him and the bar had loads of rough guys in as well. I told my mate that when he comes in I’d wait till he goes to the bar, then offer him outside. My mate says, “Nah, just get stuck in soon as you see him.” I’m thinking this over in my mind when I see them all come in, all his mates, some hard guys and some who just think they are something. In he walks, last of all. I get up and walk straight over to him. He knew I was coming over for him so as I throw a right hand he tries to slip it, but I catch him with it. Down he goes and I must have caught him a beaut because there’s claret all over. I lean over him and I told him not to mess with my woman. He’s all dazed as he’s looking up at me, so I give him the left hook, right on the side of the jaw. His eyes roll in his head and out he goes. I look up at his mates and none of them would look us in the face. I shout out, “Come on then who wants it?” None of them wanted to know. I go out the back, and I get told now they are all up screaming and shouting what they are going to do to me.
Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories Page 1
