And Simon, right in front of them, said, “This is Henry Francis from Yorkshire and I’m going to get him a fight for £10,000.”
So when Simon went to the toilet, I followed him. “I want a word with you,” I said. “What are you trying to do, get me killed?”
He said, “Don’t worry about it, they are no problem to you.”
I said, “Simey, whatever you do, leave it.”
These guys were a bit too big but, whatever Simey said, they seemed to be alright with me. We had a drink for a couple of days.
Then we had a fallout because I thought Simey was going to get me in a bit of bother. I didn’t know it at the time but the Gaskins caused the trouble for me with Simey. Tiny Gaskin told Simey a lot of lies about me. Anyway I rowed with him one day; that was my fault. And I said, “Fetch any man to me, Simey. I don’t care who it is, Ireland or anywhere.”
And he fetched a man from Ireland called Ernie McGinley. At about 4am one morning – I hadn’t long been back from having a drink and was in the trailer asleep – I heard a knock on the door. Old Simey had come with McGinley and all his cousins, Collinses and so on. McGinley was about 26 and was boxing in the ring at the time. I was 18. Simey gave him £3,500 and a horse to fight me.
He said, “I’m Ernie McGinley, I’m Golden Gloves of Ireland and I want to fight. I have heard a lot about you.”
I said, “There’s no problem. There’s enough of you, but I’ll fight you.”
McGinley hit me and, as he shook my head, I went straight into him. He could spar up and he was solid. I hit him a good few times and he was like a trunk. He was getting stronger all the time. He fought southpaw against me and he was awkward. Simon Docherty was referee and split us up three times, so I couldn’t use the nut – and everybody knows me by my head. They call me the best headbutter in Britain. My mam came out screaming for us to stop. We fought for about 15 minutes. It was a good fight. He boxed well and was fighting southpaw with me. My mam did a lot of screaming and so I gave best to the fight. That was the only time I ever gave best. I was 18 at the time but I never had a mark on me.
McGinley said to me, “This is the first time I have been on British soil. Now I have fought you I want to fight Dan Rooney. The next man is going to be Rooney and then I’m going to build the biggest house in Ireland.” McGinley did fight Rooney but it was years later. It was Simey who got them to fight. These days they’d both be in their early fifties. A man called Barney McGinley now referees all the fights and takes ten per cent of the money. They often fight wearing handwraps over there but they wouldn’t be allowed in a bareknuckle fight in this country.
The best man I fought was of Polish descent, called Richard Freddie Hancock. He is one of the roughest men in Sheffield and Rotherham. We fought twice. The Polishman was 28 and I was 20. He wouldn’t fight me in a car park but always in a toilet, and for five or six minutes he would hit me hard but his wind would go. I beat him but I came off worse. He broke my cheekbone and did some damage to my eye.
There was a lot of fighting men in Newark when I went there. I quietened them all down. The local police at Newark are red hot on me. All the doormen are frightened of me. I have battered a few of them. When I go in a nightclub in Newark you always see a paramedic ambulance outside.
I have been shot twice. My relations, one night we had a fallout and they got frightened of me and the next night five of them came to Newark. I came back from the pub and recognised two of my relations. I was surprised at them coming to fight me but they hadn’t, they had come to kill me. One pulled a shotgun out. I said, “Right, if you have got it, use it.” He shot me in the shoulder with lead shot. He was aiming for my face but I moved my head out of the way and it shot my shoulder straight off and half of my neck. The blast was like a burning fire. Then I ran and they shot me in the back. I was only about 24 and just married. I was in hospital but signed myself out. Then I got arrested for assault on somebody, GBH. But they never pinned it on me; all the charges were dropped. I have got 38 pellets in my neck and shoulder and every so often they dig one out.
I also got stabbed by a black man once. That was about four years ago at Nottingham. I was in a black man’s club and, as you do, we all took chances and didn’t realise we were in big danger. We had to fight our way out. This man whipped out a knife and tried to get me. He stabbed me under the armpit and I have a big scar there; he nearly chopped my arm off. I managed to hit him with my head and get away. We all got out of the club.
I once had a fight with an Irish lad called Par Doran. He took me on the car park. I was all on my own and he was with a gang. He was a lot bigger than me and I was young at the time. I connected a couple of times and knocked him out. All the women took off their high heels and hit me all over the head. That was at Sheffield. They beat me off him.
I fought Jimmy Stockin [a London gypsy fighter who wrote the book On The Cobbles] over a game of pitch and toss at the country and western fair at Peterborough. I had been drinking with my brothers-in-law and they are quiet fellows. It was head-and-tails and some men were turning the coins over unfairly. There was a young lad there of 14 and they were bullying him and we weren’t happy about it, but this Jimmy Stockin said, “Don’t pick on the best because the best won’t mess.” He had had a lot of fights. The brother-in-law took a swing and Stockin slapped him and then went to slap me. He didn’t know who I was until I hit him. But other people there, they knew I would act.
Boxer Tom [another renowned gypsy fighter of the Seventies] said, “Make a ring,” and he was the referee. And when I hit Stockin with the first shot, I broke the bone on my left hand, the metacarpal. It was very painful the next morning but I kept hitting him with my left and with my right and did give him a few shots with my head. There was a lot of London men and only three of us and they were all shouting, “Go on Jimmy.” The only person shouting for me was an Irish girl, Patrick Docherty’s daughter Belsie. She was shouting, “Go on Henry.” She was the bravest there because she had the guts to shout up, and I have admired the woman ever since. I hit like Mike Tyson would and I split him. He looked like he had been set about with a pickaxe. I closed his two eyes and broke his cheekbones. It lasted five minutes.
Later Boxer Tom came up to me and said, “Henry, I have known you all my life. He wants to fight you in the morning.”
I said, “Tom, he’s in no condition to fight me in the morning.” But I didn’t tell anyone I had a broken hand.
Anyway, the next morning his brother Wally was going to come and fight me. Well, when you are coursing you don’t put two dogs on one hare, do you? That night I went back to the caravans and my wife said, “Look, there is a lot of London people here and there is only us. There are too many of them.” And it wasn’t my woods; not my territory. So I pulled away about 4am because my wife was very worried that we were outnumbered and that there was a crew coming from London with Wally to fight me. I went to Burton Hospital. My hand was broken and had poison growing in it out of his teeth. It took about a year to get right.
Five weeks later was Doncaster Races. I didn’t know Jimmy Stockin was going to the races but I wasn’t planning to go anyway and also my wife didn’t want me to go because I used to gamble a lot and have a good time. Anyway, at the races apparently a man told everyone he had a gun to shoot me. A year after was the country and western at Peterborough again and Stockin was telling my mates what he would do. Someone went on the mic and called me a few names and told the lads he was going to shoot me. He was carrying a twelve-bore sawn-off shotgun under his coat.
The two best men down London way were said to be Stockin and Johnny Love. They had a very long fight against each other. Well, on Appleby Fair, Henry Arab, who they call “the Dentist” because he has knocked out that many teeth, knocked Love spark out. Johnny Love was always wary of me because he was beat by the Dentist and he knew me and him had had quarrels. Me and Henry Arab were going to have two fights that had been stopped before they started. Old Billy Welch stopped one.
Since then we are the best of friends and have great respect for each other. Them that don’t respect me are just bad losers. Love owed a relation of mine some money once for a debt and I went to collect it off him in Kentland; that is what they didn’t like me for. He was very wary of me.
I also beat Dinny Kelly and Booty Kelly together once at Chesterfield at a funeral. I broke Booty’s hand and his nose and Dinny’s jaw. Then Booty said, “Will you do us a favour? Will you take us to the hospital?” I took them to Doncaster Royal in the morning in a Morris Marina van. Dinny said, “Look at the state of us. What can we tell our mam? We will have to say we bumped into a lot of football fans and they did this to us.” And we laughed about it and were friends.
I have fought Booty Kelly five times and beat him every time. Booty is very short but thickset and muscular and thinks he is a killer. He caused the trouble between me and Bartley Gorman [Henry fought Bartley, the renowned King of the Gypsies, in a pub car park in Nottinghamshire in 1995 after a row at a funeral. The short, brutal fight was broken up by police. Bartley was then 50 and Henry was 33. They never fought again – JD]. I looked up to Bartley and I thought then that I would get Booty if it took me ten years. Then, three weeks after my brother died in a car crash, Booty came to my caravan. It was Christmas Day. I had just come back from the pub and was lying with my little girl in the trailer and was so upset about my brother Michael.
He knocked on the door and said, “Now then, cousin. You are supposed to be after me, are you?” I didn’t recognise him because I hadn’t seen him since he caused the fight with Bartley. But like you give corn to chickens, there he was at my door. He had the bottle to fight me because he’d had a few drinks. We fought right there in my yard. I absolutely splattered him. If it wasn’t for my sister and wife and son I probably would have killed him.
I have had hundreds of fights. I’ve fought loads of Welshmen, including a few Prices. I’ve also knocked out loads at Cambridge fair; I can’t even remember their names. I’m the only modern fighter that has been to many fairs: the others don’t go because of the danger. Everywhere I go, I get it done. I’m a one-man band; I go on my own. I’m known as the Dynamite Kid. I’ll fight anybody.
I even had a fight in an aeroplane coming back from South Africa. The man was six foot five and 30 years old and supposed to be a killer. He was saying who was no good as a fighter: this man and this man were “no good”. Everybody was no good except him and his dad. I said, “Stop talking about fighting. The best thing to do when the aeroplane goes down here is you and me have a fight. You have got £5,000 on you and I can match it.” I threw an apple at him on the plane [laughs]. I also had fights in Germany while I was working over there.
Terry Welch is a man of six foot four from Newark. He has been a pal of mine since we were kids. He is about 33 and 16 stone, and trains himself. I was at a funeral only a month ago, Danny Fisher’s funeral at Newark. I had a lot of drink there and people could see I was very drunk. I fell asleep twice.
Terry’s glass was empty. He said, “Whose turn is it?”
I said, “It must be your turn, collier.” Collier means gorgi, someone who isn’t a gypsy. I was only having a bit of fun but he thought he could take me because I was drunk.
He said, “Get outside, you have got me to fight.”
I said, “Look Terry, I’m very drunk, I can’t stand up. Come in the morning and bring who you want and I will fight you.”
He insisted. I took my coat off and went outside. I fell down before I went out, but that is how I am. He hit me four or five times and sobered me up. I went down and got back up. I said, “You can’t knock me out.” Then I got to it. I broke his nose and three of his ribs. We fought for seven or eight minutes and his knees were going. His chin was stuck up in the air and I hit it and he spun around and went down hard on the floor and broke his leg. The bone came out of his leg. There was a referee called “The Monkey Billy” and I hit him for being a monkey and broke his nose as well.
Even more recently, my son was fighting a lad in Derby, at the auctions. He is only 14 and was fighting a 16-year-old. I went to the auction, just me and my lad, and there were ten of them, half-bred Gaskins. My lad flogged his lad. Then there was shouting and I cracked this other one. He grabbed me and bit a piece out of my ear and I knocked him out. It took ten men to pull me off him. He said, “Give me a month to get right and I’ll fight you.” He rang and rang, he must have thought I wasn’t going to turn up. “Come with plenty of men because I’ve got plenty,” he said.
It was arranged for Derby again. When we got there, we had 200 men. There was that many people that there was three miles of traffic with me. I didn’t realise I had that many friends. And he never came – he chickened out. He rang and said he wasn’t coming. He is a half-bred gypsy whose name is not worthy to be mentioned in this book.
Good fighters wouldn’t fall out with me because they would rather be my friend. They respect me and I respect them. We would sooner do each other a good turn. I’m very good friends with Ivan and Joe Botton, who are top men. I used to look up to Bartley Gorman and was sad when he died recently. I didn’t go to his funeral because I knew there would be certain people there and I would end up fighting, and I didn’t want to show disrespect at his funeral. But I want to dedicate this to Bartley.
Fighting is in my blood: God’s gift. Everybody has one. I am naturally fit. I can fight all day. I hardly train now; I don’t need to. When they get tired [fists] I switch to the centre-forward [head]. I get second wind as well. Boxing and streetfighting are two different things. A boxer can’t fight a streetfighter. I was better out of the ring than in. When I fought people it would sometimes be “all-in” and sometimes not. If it’s all-in, you let the rules blow in the wind. When I fought them you never seemed to hear of them again. I quieten them down.
One man I respected as a fighting man got killed at Newcastle: Viv Graham. I knew him for years. He could fight, he could. He was about my match and had the same way of fighting. He was the best man around that part of the country. The other was Lee Duffy and them two was going to fight but it never came off.
But I’m 40 years old now and want to settle down and enjoy my life. I want to keep my title. There are people who say I’m the King of the Gypsies now. They say about me, “He’s not to be underestimated.”
STEVE “PIGEON” LOTE
Walsall
One of the Midlands’ best-known streetfighters, Steve has used his talents on the doors of the most dangerous clubs. A cold, calculating fighter with natural physical strength, he’s the last person you would want to come looking for you. It’s better to be turned away from the door by Steve than turned over by him. A frightening fact about Steve is that he has never been tested to his limits.
ORIGINALLY I’M FROM Essex and moved down to the Midlands when I was about seven or eight. My mum was like a guardian angel to me as a kid. She kept me out of trouble and drummed it into me to be fair and not a bully. Around here I’ve always been known by the name “Pigeon”. It’s a nickname I’ve had since I was a young lad. I had pigeons as a kid and when I was in school I would sit in class and keep checking the window to see if the birds had come home. I could see my house from the school so I’d sit there on pins waiting for them to return. When they did, I’d look at the teacher and they would let me go home to let the birds into the bird coop and that. I was a very nervous child, a little quiet and could be intimidated by others. I got to a stage where I had to stand up for myself and start fighting back. I think most kids have to confront the same problems and have to make a stand somewhere.
I started to get a name for myself as a fighter. It’s not something I wanted to be, I just did what I did to survive and get through life. I think it may be because of my nature that I became known for fighting. I always put 100 per cent into things, always want to prove myself and win. I started bodybuilding and could see guys in the gym who were real big guys. I found that a challenge and trained hard until I became
the intermediate Midlands champion. The same with fighting, I just couldn’t take second prize, had to win and be better than my opponent. I like a challenge and that’s why I used to love working the doors. I had this reputation as a fighter on the doors. I was fighting all the time so I thought I’d better start training to fight, so I started tae kwon do, which kept me fit and fast.
I have had more than my fair share of violence on the door. I’ve knocked out over 50 guys who have come at me, most with a right hook. I keep my hands low and when they come up to me I make eye contact and throw the right hook. All the time they are making eye contact they can’t see my hand come up. I have sometimes been over 20 stone when I was training hard; it does help being that big because they see the size on you and they mostly back down straight away.
I remember once I was working in Reynolds bar and we had about 25 Pakistani guys attack these three white guys. They were giving these three guys a right hiding so I jumped in to stop the fight. In the process I knock out a few of the Pakistani lads. A while later the police turn up and all they want to know is who knocked out the Pakistani lads, they want to arrest someone for it. Well nothing happened but I still can’t figure out why they didn’t arrest some of the larger gang who caused it all. I myself have never been racist but the Pakistanis said they had been beaten up in a racist attack. I would have done the same thing if the odds were the other way around.
You can’t work the doors if you can’t fight, it’s as simple as that. Sometimes when someone wants to fight, you have to put them away. They don’t always stay down with one punch, you have to be prepared to go full out on some people. I was watching the doormen of a club I was running on a CCTV monitor, and there was this stocky, well-built guy on the front door playing up. He approaches one of the doormen to fight him. The doorman puts the guy down with a straight right hand but the guy gets up and comes forward. The doorman loses his arse and backs away. Now I run out and confront the guy, who turns his attentions to me. With that I bang him one, overpower him and do him over well. As I return to the club all the punters are clapping and cheering me. It seems this guy was a well-known bully and everyone hated him. It was good to know that the punters supported me because it’s not always that way.
Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories Page 12
