Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories

by Davies, Julian

  His son was, of course, my grandfather. He was named Bartley Gorman the Second, who I think I follow because he had red curly hair like me. He travelled all over the country to fight. Most of the time he would walk to a fight. He was an immaculate dresser with his checked cap, long coat with leather buttons and a walking stick. If a man or woman tried to touch him he would push their hands away. He was a real fighting man, who fought the likes of Tom Daley in Anglesey, Chasey Price on Brynmawr mountain, Black Martin Furry, again in South Wales, but the police stopped that fight, Wiggy Lee in Yorkshire, Black Walter Lee, Will Rosamount in North Wales and Andy Reilly in Ireland, which ended in a draw.

  He once fought Matt Carroll, who was one of the greatest fighters in South Wales. Carroll was living in Ireland at the time but before leaving for America he waited so he could fight my grandfather first. When my grandfather was getting off the ship in Ireland, Carroll saw him and shouted, “I’m the best man in the thirty-two counties of Ireland, Bartley.” My grandfather shouted back, “Yes, you are, until I get off this ship and my foot touches the floor.” They fought over 75 rounds with the garda watching. My grandfather beat Carroll and, after the fight, Carroll left for America.

  When I myself was about 20, a man called Davey Stephens told me that he had once watched my grandfather fight in Cheshire. Now Davey was about 85 when, in his Welsh accent, he told me, “There was this big travelling man who had a load of sons and one of the sons was a giant. Your grandfather was about sixty-five at the time. They fought on the cobbles and this giant lad was giving your grandfather some hammer because your grandfather had been drinking that day and was the worst for wear. Your grandfather stopped the fight and went over to a horse trough and put his head into the cold water. You should have seen him after that Bartley, he was like lightning, making mincemeat of the guy.”

  From an early age, I listened to tales of my family and friends bareknuckle fighting. The stories got passed down from generation to generation. People would look at me as a child and say that I looked like my grandfather and would grow up to be the champion fighting man like he was. It was something that I was expected to be and I believed I would be, so it’s a good job I grew up to be over six foot tall and 16 stone. As a little lad of nine, I was fighting for the title of “King of the Gypsies”. It was always on my mind even back then when I started fighting other kids bareknuckle for money.

  My father took me to the Bedworth Boxing Club in Warwickshire as a small lad. I would go in the ring with the bigger, more experienced lads. They would hurt me and sometimes make me cry. All the time I was crying, I was still fighting. I guess that’s why I’m a fighter, because of my dad. I had about 20 amateur fights with that club, travelling all over the Midlands fighting. From there I went to other boxing clubs, learning all the tricks of the trade. I was asked to turn pro but I refused.

  I went on to fight Jack Fletcher for the vacant King of the Gypsies crown. I was recognised as the King of the Gypsies even before I had fought for the title. I always thought I could have won the title years earlier but was kept waiting to have my shot. I remember Fletcher coming down for the fight in his big mobile home, pulling into the car park. I was a very powerful fighter, awesome in fact; I didn’t know my own strength. To be honest, I knocked Fletcher out quite fast and became the King of the Gypsies.

  Now I was travelling up and down the country fighting for money and for honour. If I heard someone was good then I would travel to find them and seek them out. It didn’t matter if they lived in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales, in fact anywhere; if there was a fighter, I would find him. Most of the fights were held against other gypsy fighters, within the gypsy community.

  I travelled to fight a man over pit ponies once. Bob Braddock and Reg Martin had gone down to buy horses and they got talking about me. Bob came back and told me he had found a man for me to fight, a man called Jack Grant, and would I fight him down a mine for 25 pit ponies. I thought I’d like to see the ponies freed because they were going blind down the mine. I could give them to the children. I asked him what he was getting out of it all and he said there were 50 altogether, 25 for me and 25 between him and Reg. The guy I was fighting was a mine fighter. He fought down some of the South Wales mines. Now, I know he wasn’t a travelling man, but I wanted to get those ponies out of there so I agreed to the fight down the mine.

  We found a place to fight, it was a mine in Derbyshire, a lead mine in fact. We had to go down to the mine in a little bucket off some crane device, which I just did not like at all. All his mates had come up from Wales for the fight, as well as the few I brought with me. We shook hands and I could see when he stripped his top off that he was a fighting man: he was muscular and a strong-looking, hard man. Now I was fighting this miner in his own environment because he wouldn’t fight where the police could arrest him. I was fighting in an alien environment, a place where I didn’t want to be. The fight started well but all the miners around us had their hard hats on their heads with all the lamps turned toward us for light, so we could fight. Well it dawned on me that his mates were shining their lamps into my eyes to blind me in the fight.

  However a fight comes, I have to take it. The only way to win was to keep punching and punching and ignore the light in my eyes. He hit me with some real good shots. My height was also a disadvantage because the mine was very low and we were fighting across the rail track. The fight was hard and rough. I took a few head-butts which nearly put me down. I threw one punch that missed and I broke my knuckles on the side of the mine. This was going to be one of the hardest fights of my life; it went on for a good while, each of us determined to win. At one stage they pulled us apart to put water over us, which I found unusual, but I was glad of it. Even today I still have the image of him coming towards me with big square shoulders, two teeth missing in the front, coal dust marks on his face and his eyes glinting with the lamplight. I put him down in the end but it was a close one. I had to really deck him to win, he was such a tough man. We shook hands after the fight and he told me I was the best fighter he ever fought. I’d love to know more about this man; he fought under the name Grant but later I found out his real name was Preece.

  I never liked to fight a friend or someone I liked, but sometimes it just turns out that way. I knew this fifth dan karate expert, he was a big man with jet-black hair, a square jaw and very powerful. He even went to China or Japan to train with them as well. He was always training to fight, always practising some move or other, a dedicated man. On this day I’m lying down in the caravan watching the television. Outside, he has some travellers to hold breezeblocks so he can smash them. I didn’t really want them broke, as I wanted them to build a shed at the time. The men shouted to me to come out and hold the blocks, as they couldn’t hold them because he was kicking that hard. I didn’t want to come out – I’d rather watch the television – but out I come and I hold the block and the karate man smashes the block to bits with his head.

  “Okay lads, put the blocks back now, I’m going back in the caravan,” I tell them all. Now, I always told this karate man not to mess with me in front of people, because I won’t have it. If he wanted to show me a move, like a throw or a punch, he could do it in private but not to show me up in front of people. I tried to walk to my caravan and he steps in front of me. I step to the side and he’s there again. No matter which way I went, he was in front of me, blocking my way. He was making an idiot of me. I didn’t want to hurt him, I just kept asking for him to move, but he wanted to make me look a fool. He wouldn’t even speak to me, just this karate stance and silence.

  I said, “Okay, if that’s how you want it,” and moved straight in on him. I never stopped punching until I finished it. I broke my knuckles and hands on his head. During the fight he did this move on me called, I think, “the tiger’s teeth”, where he bit my arm and dragged it like a zip all the way up, ripping me open. But I wasn’t a breezeblock that was going to stand still for him to hit. I just kept on smashing him up, not givi
ng him a chance to use a useful move on me. He was all beaten up and I was standing there with my hands bashed up, with all the flesh hanging off my knuckles.

  He said later, “Bartley, we must never fight again.”

  I answered him, “Yes, that’s what I told you before this started.” I never wanted to hurt him, it was just that I’m a fighting man and he just kept pushing me to the limit in front of travellers. I was put on the spot.

  I’ve been is some terrible fights in my life but the one that nearly killed me was when I went looking for Bob Gaskin. He and a band of travellers were taking the north of England by storm. Any travellers who stood in their way were in trouble. I sent out a challenge to him but heard nothing about it. Then one day I was painting this barn and came back home covered in black tar and worn out from working all day. I got told then that my brother John had been looking for me. He had got six stitches put across his eye by Bob Gaskin. He was playing the melodeon at Doncaster when Gaskin hit him and John was only 16. I didn’t know that Doncaster was Gaskin’s hometown at the time. Hitting my brother was meant as a message to me. I was furious, so angry that I kicked the door of the house off the hinges.

  I jumped in the old Transit van that I had and drove all the way to Hinckley, near Coventry, to see my brother Sam, almost turning the van over as I drove. I told our Sam what Gaskin had done and that I had by now arranged to fight Gaskin the next Saturday. Sam said that he would deal with it tomorrow and went off to sleep. I was just going to go to sleep myself when up comes my other brother John with a gang of men. I went to my friend Frank’s house and while I was upstairs lying in the bath I could hear them talking about the up-coming fight. They were saying that travellers from all over were coming to watch it. From Scotland and all over the UK, word was spreading. I had to go to Doncaster racecourse on the day of the St Leger race and get the fight over with.

  Sam had hired a Vauxhall Ventura, so we drove up with a few men with us to the Park Royal Hotel looking for Gaskin and his men. There were men everywhere and they all knew what I was coming for, they were expecting me. The word of the fight was spreading out ahead of me. I met Hughie Burton [King of the Gypsies before Bartley – JD], who told me not to go down amongst the trailers or they would kill me. I should have taken his advice but off we go all the same. As we travelled down to where the trailers were, we could see the heat coming off them, there was that many there for the races. They had come from all over the world just for the Doncaster St Leger and here was us coming down to fight amongst them all.

  When we got amongst the trailers, we found that hundreds of travellers were waiting for the fight to start but there was no Bob Gaskin. I didn’t know that he was out recruiting men, paying them money to stand by his side. I was stripped to the waist waiting for Gaskin. I was just going to leave when all these trucks turned up just like the army. They all had weapons; there was about 200 of them all told. I fetched a crowbar out of the car and gave it to my brother Sam. “Here you are, see me fair play in this fight, Sam,” meaning he should make sure the fight is fair and if needed use the crowbar. Sam says, “I don’t need that Bartley,” and throws it on the floor. He was a brave man our Sam, and a good fighter. I just knew that it wasn’t going to be fair play and Sam always said he should have kept the crowbar.

  I’m standing there waiting for the fight, stripped to the waist with my boxing boots on. Every one of them knew who I was with my head full of red hair. The men who came towards me looked like a Walt Disney film with tall men, short men, fat and skinny men all marching towards us. I can honestly say I wasn’t scared, I was now in my environment – I’m a fighter, therefore I must fight. I had a chance to take a way out which would have at that time got me away but I couldn’t do that, it was against everything I stood for.

  “Where’s Bob Gaskin?” I shout to them all.

  With that, about ten men shouted back that they were Bob Gaskin. Well, I saw the one who fitted his description move towards me. I was so determined to hurt Bob Gaskin that when I threw a punch at him I put him down straight away, his feet went up in the air first before he went down.

  Next minute, there were men all over Sam, kicking him to pieces. There must have been 40 around him, all fighting to kick him. Before I could do anything I get smashed over the head with a car prop shaft. I drop to one knee but get back up with my head smashed up on one side. I then take another blow on my hands which busted them open. I run straight into them, trying to get through them to the car to get Sam and me away. As I’m fighting to get to the car, I have at least eight men trying to hold me and bring me down. I was that strong that they couldn’t stop me.

  I got into the car as about 50 men surrounded the car, smashing every bit of it, ripping the doors off. The car was a write-off. An iron bar comes through the windscreen and hits me between the eyes, blood dripping down my face. They had me trapped but I wouldn’t leave go of the steering wheel because they would have dragged me out and killed me. The steering wheel was buckled with me holding it. They were coming in through the doors and windows all the time, smashing me with bars and other weapons. They push a bar right down my throat, breaking my Adam’s apple as the bar went from side to side.

  At one time things went a little silent and I spot a Gaskin coming towards me with a broken cider bottle in his hand. I was sure I was going to die. I was so weak from the hiding and the loss of blood from where they had stabbed me, I was convinced that this was the end. I scream out, “I came for a fair fight, no bottles and that, just a fair fight.” They hold me down and this Gaskin starts to saw off my leg with the broken bottle. I’m screaming in pain, bent back in agony while he is cutting me below the knee. The reason my leg was getting cut was because I kicked out to stop them getting my throat with it. I know I later had 400 stitches and micro-surgery on it but I still came off better than if they had my throat. The blood poured all over this Gaskin; I remember him standing with my blood all over him.

  Somebody took the bottle off him, but I’m still getting hit. A baseball bat smashes me in the head about four times and I have to stay awake because if I left go of the wheel I would be dead. My brother Sam gets in the back of the car. How he did it I don’t know. They drag him out and put him under the car’s wheel, hoping that I would reverse over him. Sam got away in someone’s Mercedes. It was every man for himself – I couldn’t help Sam and he couldn’t help me.

  They are on me now and they are really giving it to me. There’s so much blood in my eyes that the whole world looks red to me. They were also fighting with each other over who was going to do me. They were having terrible fights over it. Someone smashed me again over the head and I pretend to go down but still I hold the wheel. I thought they would leave me be but they increase the damage. All blood was pouring out of my mouth as I’m lying there; I’m getting weaker and weaker. I tell them, “You’re hurting me too much my brothers, too much,” but they didn’t care, it didn’t bother them. I notice my godmother’s husband, my Uncle Peter, and I shout, “Help me, Peter.” He runs in to get me out – like Rocky Marciano he was, 48 years old – and he’s amongst them with all his teeth knocked out. He ran to Bob Gaskin and told him to stop it all. With that I manage to start the car. Thank you God, for that.

  I just drove off, shot through them all. I didn’t care who I knocked over. I had been attacked 200 yards from the Royal Box; I could have had millions for my story if I had drove up and stopped the St Leger race. There was dustbins flying everywhere, I drove so far up in this car with the doors pulled off, windows smashed in and bumper torn away. I couldn’t drive any more, I was too weak, then I stop the car and I see this man all bashed up. He was covered in blood and his skin was bruised purple.

  I ask him who he was and he tells me, “I’m Sam Gorman. Who are you?”

  “Sam! It’s me, your brother Bartley.” We were so beaten that we didn’t know who the other was.

  There were hundreds of people all around us now, women screaming, children being sick. I c
all to a friend to help me hold my head up but he was too scared to move and help me. I look down and I see my leg. While I was getting beaten and trying to get away, I had forgotten about it, but now I could see blood gushing out of it. I pick up a rag and tie it around my leg. A policeman took off his jacket and held it onto my leg. I’m on the stretcher being taken away and I can see all the Gaskins looking at me. I roll off the stretcher and I stand on one leg and shout, “Still King of the Gypsies! Come and fight me now Bob Gaskin, with all these police watching, fight me man to man.” Of course, he didn’t come but I made sure they all heard me.

  While I’m in hospital there are about 200 trailers in the car park waiting for me to get out. For two weeks they waited there. There were hundreds turning up to see how I was. I was in bed not able to move, in a critical condition. They rushed me down to have an emergency operation. While all this was happening, there were travellers there with shotguns to protect me. The drawers in my room were stashed full of well-wisher money, the room full of bottles of Guinness and various drinks. Later on I had men from Scotland Yard standing in my room armed, watching over me after I received death threats.

  My mother came to see me. She held my hand and informs me, “Before two months today, the man who did this will be lying in the same bed as you.” When I’m out of hospital, my brother Sam phones me and says, “Guess who’s in intensive care in the same bed as you Bartley? Bob Gaskin.” Turns out someone had shot him. He had been shot in the stomach while in an argument with other travellers.

  After years of rehabilitation and walking with crutches, I was back fighting fit. I had many fights after the Gaskin battle and was never put down. I never look to cause trouble when I go out. I just like to talk with people and have a drink and maybe sing a few songs. The trouble with being a fighter is that everyone knows you as one and there’s no escaping from it. There was no escaping the fighting. Even years after at my brother’s funeral [Sam Gorman died in 1991], someone had wrote to the papers saying I could fight all the gypsy fighters one after another and beat them all on the same day. Everyone took this as a challenge but I hadn’t said it, it was a stupid thing to say. There’s no way I wanted to fight just after my brother Sam’s funeral, but in the night when we all were having a drink, I got into an argument with Ned Rooney [an Irish traveller]. He wouldn’t believe that I didn’t put the article in the paper. I explained that I didn’t but we both kept arguing back and forth.