Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories

by Davies, Julian

  ALEK PENARSKI

  Chesterfield and Bolton

  Born in May 1953, Alek was raised to fight, and as a boxer became Central Area light-heavyweight champ. A man you would not want to cross, he is always prepared to go the limit. When the odds are stacked against him, this man will shape the fight his way – anything goes. Losing is not an option.

  I’M FROM CHESTERFIELD originally, from quite a big family of three brothers and two sisters. My old man was a sergeant in the Army, he came here [from Poland] after the War and met my old lady. My mum was only 18 at the time when she met my father. She was engaged to this other man. Turns out the other man and my father fought, ending up with my father being done for manslaughter.

  As kids we were always fighting each other, sometimes there would be three on to one, with lots of punches and blood each time. My father would encourage this. I think he wanted us to be able to defend ourselves. He would take us all in to shops and we would all come out wearing new coats, which of course we never paid for. If we went to the cinema he would have us all looking for half tickets outside on the floor. Then he would tell whoever was in charge that he had just taken us out to get some sweets, and show them the half tickets as proof. He never let us eat sweets, we would all sit in the cinema with lumps of Polish bread and salami. He would even file down washers so they would fit in the electric or the gas meter, that way he could use the money he saved to get beer.

  He was a very strict man, never swore in front of my mother and Sunday dinner was always like a ritual thing with him. At Christmastime he would break us holy bread. I think this all came from his childhood in Poland. We couldn’t leave food on our plate – if we did he would go bananas. Even today, at the age of 48, I still eat everything that’s put in front of me, sometimes even off other people’s plates. Force of habit, I guess. For some reason my father sort of chose me from my other brothers, he would walk around with me on his shoulders, everywhere he went.

  I can remember when our local boxing contender Peter Bates fought Brian London for the heavyweight title. The whole of Chesterfield and Derbyshire were up, listening to the fight on the radio. It was great, even though he lost the fight. Peter had a pub in Chesterfield called the Red Lion and on Sundays my father would take us there. At the back of the pub was an old stable where Peter would train. This is where I really learnt to fight. We were matched up to fight the boys from other families. If we won, then the loser’s father would pay for all my dad’s drink for the day, or my father would pay for the other guy’s. Sometimes I’d win, sometimes I’d get battered.

  My father would go to the fairgrounds and fight whoever was in the boxing booth. He always took my mother to these fights. Once he had just beat a good fighter called Morris and when he got out of the ring he started fighting with these teddy boys. All the time he was fighting, my mother would be hitting the teddy boys over their heads with her brolly.

  Back in 1968, he had been drinking this one night and he stole loads of chickens from a farm and brought them home. He killed all the chickens, and put them all in my sister’s doll pram wrapped up in blankets, just before the police turned up. My sister pushes the pram away from them and it looks like he was going to get away with it. The police find all the feathers and blood so it was obvious to them that he had done it. How they tracked him down was because he had dropped his bingo ticket with his name on at the farm. Well, there were not many people called Penarski so they had him.

  My father taught us to do anything to survive. I follow him in so many ways. One day we would be selling puppies at Chesterfield market place, the next we could be working on the rag and bone. I was always fighting as a kid, very seldom getting beaten and if I did get beaten it was by a few of them, not one on his own. This was because my dad had made us used to fighting. Every school I went to I was the best fighter there.

  My father went away for beating two coppers up. When he came home my mother locked him out, she no longer wanted anything to do with him. I can remember him knocking the door and we weren’t allowed to open it to him. That was a bit hard for us kids. I loved both of them just as much as the other. I myself have sort of become a black sheep of the family over the years, maybe it’s because I take after my dad so much, I’m like his double. He’s made me into a survivalist like himself.

  In school there were a few teachers who never really liked my family, probably because we were always in so much trouble. What didn’t help us much was when our science teacher asked the whole class what we wanted to do when we left school. Well, we told them we wanted to be gangsters. I know it’s wrong now but we used to take all the money off the “rich kids” in school. This other teacher took a particular dislike to us and would always pronounce our surname wrong. He would try to take the piss out of me at every chance he got. On the very last day of school, I had just come off the football field and I think the teacher threw something at me. I always said I was going to do him and seeing as this was my last day of school I let him have it. I can’t tell you just how good it felt to give it to him. There’s always someone who you hated at school and he was the one for me.

  As I grew up I was getting more and more involved in fighting; whether it was in a disco or on the street, I just loved it. I started going around with other lads who wanted it as well, so we would get gangs come looking for us. Other days we would go looking for them. We used to get involved in some right scraps. Then there was this book published about “Joe Hawkins” [the Skinhead series by cult author Richard Allen – JD] and it really changed our lives, I can’t stress the effect this book had on us. It was all about this skinhead who was always fighting. Next thing, I and all my mates were skinheads. We were living our lives just like the character in the book. I could introduce you to at least 20 guys today whose lives have been changed due to that book.

  On one occasion we had all come back from a weekend in Skegness battling with various football fans. We supported Derby County and would love fighting guys from clubs like United, Forest or Leicester, we would hunt each other down in the bars at night-time. The fights were ferocious, with bottles, knives and even ripping off parts of fences to use on each other. We came home on the train and it stopped at Grantham. We got off and when we look across the track, there on the other platform were loads of Forest fans. We were all drunk and up for it, so after we exchanged insults, I decided to run round and fight with them.

  Now I always had this reputation as being the first one in, maybe it’s because I was the maddest one, I don’t know. Anyway, I get to the Forest fans before my mates can turn up and I wade into them. I was tooled up with a cosh in my hand. As I was fighting, some guys were on me and my arms were trapped so I couldn’t use them. I can remember this one guy pulling out a knife and it’s as if he was in slow motion as he stabbed me in the stomach. Even though this happened, I was still fighting with them. The blood was everywhere, all over my jeans, Ben Sherman shirt and my Doc Marten boots. After a while I started to get really hot and my stomach felt like it was a balloon that had deflated. I fought on for a while like this and then, with all the blood loss, I dropped to the floor. A few of my mates got stabbed as well, one in his head and another one in his back. The police turned up with the ambulance, they took me across the railway lines. I looked down to see this big slit, with some of my intestines hanging out. The blood was pumping out of me. I could see the ambulance man push my intestines back in and put some sort of bandage on and hold it tight against me. I had to have an emergency blood transfusion and spent four hours being operated on. The doctors told me that I would never be able to fight again, but I proved them wrong with that one.

  My brother phoned the house one day, he was having trouble with a few karate guys. I was sat here having my tea when he phoned. Don’t get me wrong, my brother can fight, in fact I taught him how to box. The difference with me is that I’m more “streetwise” than he is and can switch when needed. Within the hour I’m down where my brother lives and I track down the karat
e guy’s house. I kick the door in and whack him one, I take his teeth out and fracture his skull. That’s the way it’s been with me; I will hunt someone down if I feel they have crossed me or my family in some way.

  I once got a two-year suspended jail sentence for beating up these two rugby players. I was just taking a ride in my brother’s new car; he had just bought a new Cortina GT. My brother turned the car without indicating, this other guy’s car came around the corner, and he spun his car around my brother’s car. One of the two rugby players in the first car started shouting and sticking his fingers up. The other car pulls up and this big rugby player gets out. My brother runs over and the guy gets back in his car. My brother bends down to look through the driver’s window, when all of a sudden the door is kicked open. The glass in the driver’s door smashes in my brother’s face, cutting him open. I get out of the car and run across, at this moment all I can see is red. I always take things like this to the extreme. I guess that’s why I’m always the last to know when anyone in the family gets any trouble. They try to keep me out of things because of the way I react. Anyway, I smash both the guys up, really going to town on the pair of them. One of them keeps getting back up, but each time he does I smash him back down. I break his jaw and smash all his teeth in. Some others come at me from across the street and I lay into them as well.

  I knew it wouldn’t be long before the police came looking. On the way home I tell my brother that if he gets pulled by the police, to tell them I was a hitchhiker. I make my way to my father’s caravan. When I get there I realise that I have broken two of my fingers fighting. I made a phone call the next day and found out that the police had sussed out that I had beaten up the rugby players. Turns out one of them had to be rushed to hospital. I was always fighting so it wasn’t very hard for them to work out that it was me. I decided to turn myself in and take whatever came.

  When it came to court the guy who I did the most damage to turned up wearing glasses and carrying his umbrella, looking like a right wanker. There was me standing in the dock, with skinhead written all over me. To make things worse the police had all these photos of all the damage that I had inflicted on them. I knew I was in trouble so I informed the court, “Look, I know I’m no angel. The guys said I kicked them. Well, I didn’t, my father always taught me not to kick a man in a fight, just use my hands. I’m a boxer and I’ve never kicked anyone in my life. I did the damage with my hands because of what they did to my brother.” I think that little speech got me off with that one, and I count myself lucky.

  By this time I had left home. I was doing various jobs, from putting rings up for wrestlers like Big Daddy to working the doors at night clubs. I was sharing a home with a Tongan heavyweight boxing champion for about two years. I used to eat the same food as he did, which was usually boiled cabbage with corned beef covered in Libby’s milk.

  The skinhead movement was fading out in Britain but me, I was still fighting. Since becoming a skinhead I had changed my whole outlook on life. I just needed to fight. I was always up for a fight no matter what the odds were. It wasn’t long before I got signed up to fight as a professional boxer. I can’t say I was a dedicated boxer in those days. I just wanted to get straight in the fight and slug it out. I just wanted to fight and earn money, taking loads of fights on very short notice. There was talk at this time of me fighting Dennis Andries [the future British and WBC world light-heavyweight champion]. Now I had been to see him fight and felt I could beat him. Other boxers were a bit wary of him but we were similar fighters and I felt I had the edge on him. When we fought I kept the fight in close, tying him up. I was always looking for openings right from the bell. Apart from Tommy Hearns, I’m the only guy to put Andries down. I hit him with a shovel punch under the heart and down he went on one knee. The fight was a close one and I lost it by one round. I received a caution in the second round for head-butting. I was a fool to myself with that one, even the referee told me if it weren’t for the caution I would have won. I met Andries a few years later and we shook hands. He seemed a nice guy; tidy family man as well.

  I never, ever said no to a fight. I’d get in the ring with anyone, no matter if I hadn’t trained or if they phoned me the night before the fight. I was clean out of money and was desperate to earn cash and by this time I had a family to feed as well as myself. Things were so bad that I would go to fish shops, order loads of grub and after they wrapped everything up, I’d complain that I had left my money at home. Nine times out of ten they would tell me to bring the money in later and take the food for now. For one fight I had to lose six pounds in one hour. The only way to do it was to have a sauna. It’s a lot of weight to lose so fast but I did it. I weren’t supposed to do it and was told not to say anything about it. I fought some well-known boxers over the years on short notice, guys like Tim Witherspoon and Henry Akinwande [who both held versions of the world heavyweight title]. I’ve had my ups and downs in boxing, and like I always said, if it meant my family getting fed then I’d fight ten bloody Vikings if I had to!

  I was in the car park of a club I was working at called the Aquarius one night when I felt something dig into my back. I had been seeing an ex-girlfriend of another doorman and turns out he had shot me in the back. Police forensics had the bullet that they pulled from my back and told me it was shot by a .22 rifle. Strange thing was that my mate, who was living with me, went to see about getting access to his kid, and gets into an argument. The brother of the girl he had split up with gets hold of the very same gun that shot me. Then he decides to shoot my mate in the stomach. This of course nearly kills him. Shootings in those days were so very rare: to get two boxers shot in the same week was a big thing back then.

  I spent a few weeks on remand over an armed robbery once. Two lads came to my house with shooters, two good friends who I used to train. They had pulled an armed robbery on a jeweller’s shop. They were on the run and didn’t know they were being followed. I give them a lift in my Mercedes and we all get pulled by the police. I’m remanded in Strangeways “Cat A” Prison for a crime that I didn’t do. I couldn’t say anything at the time but thankfully my mates owned up to it and I got my charges dropped. Now I had been doing quite well for myself, I had become a minder and had good contracts watching some famous people. I was getting £4–500 a day, and I lost it all when it was reported that I was involved in the robbery. I was in charge of various club doors around the place and I lost them all as well. My name has become tarnished for a crime that I didn’t commit.

  I’m 48 now and still training for fights. I fight on unlicensed boxing shows. In the last few weeks I’ve gone through loads of sparring partners. I train six days a week, twice a day. If I’m not in the gym then I’m on the roads or out with my dogs. I don’t believe in all this fancy training that some people do. The rougher it is, the better it is for me.

  I’m often asked when I will quit fighting. Well, my dad’s 74 and he’s still fighting, so there’s hope for me yet.

  BARTLEY GORMAN

  Uttoxeter

  The greatest ever bareknuckle champion and undisputed King of the Gypsies. Not only did Bartley take on all comers – he went looking for them. Prepared to fight anyone anywhere, be it at a gypsy horse fair, in a pub car park or even down a coal mine, if the challenge was issued, the challenge was met. An intelligent man who lived life to the full, the great Bartley Gorman was truly an inspiration.

  I COME FROM a big fighting family. It all started with my great-grandfather Bartley Gorman the First. He was an Irish tinker who travelled around in a horse-drawn gypsy wagon. He would travel all over Ireland earning his money mending pots and pans. He was a very religious man who didn’t use to fight. His caravan was full of pictures of the Virgin Mary and he wouldn’t let a man who didn’t believe in God into his wagon. How he got into fighting was through his brother Jim, who was blind since birth. Jim was in Dublin and he sold a man called Jack Ward a horse which had a gammy leg; it was lame but Jim, being blind, didn’t know this. A lot
of travellers buy things on sight without checking, just on a handshake and trust. Now, Jack Ward was the “King of the Tinkers”, he was a good fighting man. Jack leaves the pub and takes a good look at the horse, only to find it has a gammy leg. He came back into the pub and set about Jim, dragging him outside and beating him unmerciful. It didn’t even bother him that Jim was a blind man. He was beaten so bad that they had to wheel him home in a barrow. My great-grandfather couldn’t believe his eyes and asked who had done this terrible thing to a blind man. He was so bad that he couldn’t answer him but after a while he manages to tell him that it was Jack Ward. Immediately, my great-grandfather walks down to the pub in Dublin to fight Jack Ward.

  My great-grandfather beat Jack Ward, which nobody had ever done before, so everyone wanted to know who this Bartley Gorman was. My great-grandfather now became the champion of all Ireland, from beating Ward. The famous bareknuckle fighter Jem Mace, the world heavyweight champion, came to Ireland to fight a man named Joe Coburn. Well, my great-grandfather and some other travellers told him he should be fighting my great-grandfather because he was the Irish champion. He was reluctant at first but then agreed to fight on the cobbles outside a pub in Dublin. Well, the fight went well but the garda [police] stopped the fight. My great-grandfather claimed the title because he had had the beating of Jem Mace. After moving to England, my great-grandfather beat the toughest Romany fighting man in England – he was called Mo Smith – and then he went on to beat a man named Wenman from London. He went on to have many bareknuckle fights in England and was renowned for his fighting skills.