Foreigners Page 7

  In the late summer of 1950, Turpin fought a tough opponent, named Eli Elandon, and defeated him in under two rounds, and therefore the relative isolation of the castle as a training base seemed to have worked. Once the world title bout with Robinson was announced, Turpin decided to move back to Wales in order that he might prepare for the biggest fight of his career. This time, rather than have Turpin training up on the hillside, the opportunistic Salts moved Turpin's camp to the more spacious east lawn and put up a huge sign: COME AND MEET A BRITISH CHAMPION AT SUNNY GWRYCH CASTLE.

  Come they did, and they paid two shillings to see Turpin jogging lightly towards the ring like a gladiator in his white robe, flanked on one side by his smaller brother Jackie, who carried his gloves, and on the other side by a sparring partner who would soon be given a thorough goingover. Salts was making good money not only out of admission fees, but from selling autographed souvenirs. The constant flow of sparring partners, including Turpin's brother Jackie, all felt underpaid and underappreciated, often having to go down into the town in order that they might find a decent meal. However, Salts had managed to work his way into the full confidence of Turpin, and the fighter's mind remained fixed on the discipline of training. In fact, Turpin was content to leave all business and financial arrangements to Middleton and Salts.

  Britain in the early fifties was a desolate place whose urban landscape remained largely pockmarked with bomb sites. Derelict buildings and wasteland spoke eloquently to the pummelling that the country had taken in the recent war, but the government lacked the resources to do anything about this bleak terrain. Victory against Germany had been achieved, but at a price that some now considered simply too high. While Allied money flowed into Germany to help rebuild the defeated nation, six years after the war Britain appeared to have stagnated economically, its confidence shot, and its people suffering. Thousands of servicemen had returned after the war only to discover that there was no industrial machine for them to rejoin, and that jobs were scarce on the ground. The women who had manned the factories during the war found it difficult to readjust to their old roles as housewives and mothers, and those for whom privilege had been an accepted part of their pre-war life soon discovered that the introduction of a welfare state, with free health and education for the working classes, heralded a challenge to their assumptions of class superiority. Britain was depressed and good times seemed a long way off. The average Briton still utilised his ration book and had to remember to count each penny, and day trips to glamorous locations like Gwrych Castle were to be savoured. The opportunity of seeing boxers in action, particularly champion boxers like young Randolph Turpin, brightened up everybody's lives. When it was announced that Sugar Ray Robinson would be visiting Britain, and that a British lad would be given the chance to enter the ring and go a few rounds with him, this was a shot in the arm to the blighted confidence of the British people. Everybody was excited that the Sugarman, pink Cadillac and all the rest of it, would soon be in town.

  After Turpin and Robinson shook hands and posed briefly for photographs, Turpin stripped off his shabby dressing gown and mounted the scales. At 5'11'' and with unusually broad shoulders, he tipped the scales at 159 lb. His opponent, on the other hand, was 5½ lb inside the 160 lb limit. Robinson looked at the Englishman and found it hard to believe that this heavily muscled coloured lad was not at least a light heavyweight. The strapping lad was clearly as strong as an ox and in his autobiography Robinson was to describe his feelings at this moment. 'Right there, Turpin impressed me. His torso was like an oak tree. If he could box even a little bit I was going to be in trouble.' Of course, the British knew that their man could fight a bit. After all, he was the British and European middleweight champion, and he never seemed to worry unduly about who he was going to fight. In fact, this was his greatest asset, his ability to approach every bout as though it was no more or no less difficult than the one before. However, those pressmen who had bothered to visit his camp at Gwrych Castle would have seen how, on this occasion, his training had been geared specifically to cope with Robinson's fast combinations and the most devastating left hook in the business. One training partner in particular had been detailed to throw nothing but Sugar Ray-style left hooks, hard, fast, and non-stop. However, despite Robinson's private ruminations on seeing Turpin stripped to the waist, Sugar Ray knew that he was the champion, he was the draw, and tomorrow his European sojourn would be at an end and he would be counting his money and readying himself to depart back across the Atlantic Ocean in the direction of New York City.

  The weigh-in ended with the British Boxing Board of Control doctor verifying that both the champion and the challenger were in a fit state to fight this evening over fifteen rounds for the middleweight championship of the world. For most of the proceedings, Robinson had effortlessly played to the crowd, who clearly adored him. Turpin, by contrast, had stayed quietly in the background enjoying the 'show' as much as anyone else. As the weigh-in concluded, and the Robinson entourage left noisily for a West End hotel, Turpin, his brothers Dick and Jackie, and George Middleton realised that they had a whole afternoon to kill and they were momentarily stumped as to what to do. It was Randolph Turpin who decided that the most important thing would be to get away from the hordes of people, and so he suggested that they all go and watch a film. After all, it would be dark inside the cinema, and nobody would recognise them so they would be able to sit down and unwind in peace.

  George Middleton bought four entrance tickets and they all trooped into a West End picture house and took their seats. Within minutes of the feature beginning, Turpin was pushing Jackie and rousing him from his sleep. 'Wake up, Jack. This is a bloody good film!' Jackie tried to stay awake, but the warmth and comfort of the cinema won the battle and soon he was once again fast asleep. Randolph Turpin, however, paid rapt attention and he followed the whole story right down to the film's conclusion. As they stepped out of the cinema and into the light of a beautiful late afternoon in July, George Middleton looked nervously at his watch. It was time. They found their way to the nearest Tube station where George bought four single fares to Earls Court and handed the brothers their tickets. Fight fans who were travelling from work directly to the Exhibition Hall at Earls Court could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw Randolph Turpin, his fight gear in a used carrier bag that was tucked neatly under his arm, riding to the biggest night in British sporting history on the same Tube as them. Whatever the outcome of tonight's fight, this man of the people was already a hero. Should he manage to survive even one or two rounds and put up a decent showing, this would be enough to get the celebratory pints flowing later on in the evening. Few could ever have imagined it, but on this particular night it was a coloured fighter on whom all British hopes were pinned.

  British people have always held their prizefighters in high esteem, for their toughness and rugged durability represents, in their eyes, the very best of the British bulldog spirit. Boxing is also a sport which brings together those at either end of the social spectrum, with the bouts generally fought by working-class toughs under the supervision and patronage of blue bloods and aristocrats. For the upper classes, being able to box is a social skill which one often acquires as part of one's education, but actual prizefighting is considered best left to the lower orders. In the early nineteenth century, both the blue bloods and the lower classes came together when an outsider, a black American named Tom Molineaux, was scheduled to fight the British hero Tom Cribb for what would have been regarded the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. The fight took place in December 1810 at Copthall Common just south of London, and thousands of people poured out of the city and gathered in a field to witness the battle royal. The black American was clearly getting the better of the Englishman, but unable to tolerate the notion of the championship being in the hands of either an American, or a black man, the crowd stormed the ring injuring Molineaux's hands. The fight was eventually restarted, but the 'ebony imposter', as the English had dubbed him,
was incapable of defending himself and was eventually defeated. The championship title remained in English hands and the foreign threat was vanquished.

  Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century bare-knuckle fighting eventually gave way to 'boxing' in 1867, when twelve rules for the sport were drafted and published under the patronage of John Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry. Fights were now to be 'a fair stand-up boxing match' in a twenty-four-foot ring, with rounds of three minutes duration and one minute of rest between each round. Padded gloves were to be worn, and there was to be no 'butting or wrestling', and should a man be knocked down he would be allowed ten seconds to get up. The first world title bout under these rules saw the heavyweight 'Gentleman Jim' Corbett defeat John L. Sullivan in 1892 in New Orleans. By the end of the nineteenth century, and on into the twentieth, the odd stout-hearted English fighter aside, American boxers ruled the roost at most weights. Wave after wave of new American immigrant – Italian, Irish, and Jewish – attempted to establish a place in American life by earning some respect in the ring. However, when it came to title shots black boxers were often deliberately left at the back of the line. The charismatic black boxer Jack Johnson, who held the world heavyweight title from 1908 until 1915, did much to stir up hostility and antipathy towards coloured fighters by the outlandish nature of his behaviour. Boastful, arrogant even, with a twinkling eye, a broad grin, and a succession of white women on his arm, Johnson was everything that 'white America' hated. When 'white America' finally won back 'their' heavyweight championship in 1915, they were reluctant to let any other uppity negroes take it away again. In the future their champions would be white, or black and humble, like Joe Louis. Sugar Ray Robinson fell into the category of the humble for, despite all his flash and his panache, he was a charmer who possessed impeccable manners. He was, in short, an acceptable negro, a person who most white Americans were proud and comfortable to see representing them.

  In Britain things had been, until two years earlier, somewhat different. A clear colour bar had been in effect so that black boxers were prohibited from fighting for or holding the British title. They were allowed to fight for the British Empire title, but at all weights black boxers, even if they were, like Randolph Turpin, born and bred in Britain, were treated as foreigners and excluded from fighting for their own national championship. After the Second World War there was increasingly vocal opposition to the policy, and in 1947 the racist restriction was lifted. Fittingly, it was Turpin's eldest brother, Dick, who, in June 1948, became Britain's first black boxing champion, lifting the middleweight crown. He lost the title in April 1950, but a few months later, in October 1950, his brother Randy won back the title. However, a national title was not nearly enough to guarantee a lucrative payday. Fight fans tended to rally behind local heroes, and to some extent box offices depended upon a fighter bringing his loyal followers to a bout. Although many people in the Midlands did recognise Randolph Turpin as one of their own, there was no serious box-office support for a coloured fighter no matter how skilled or game he might be. There was no doubt that Turpin was popular and regarded as a man of the people, but the interest of the general public in the Robinson versus Turpin bout was generated by Robinson's presence, and by the David versus Goliath aspect of the clash. The British Boxing Board of Control may have relaxed their rules to accommodate coloured boxers, but the general public had still not fully warmed to the idea of black boxers being also British.

  On the warm summer's evening of 10 July, 1951, 18,000 people were packed into the Earls Court Exhibition Hall, with many hundreds more milling about in the car park outside. In homes throughout the length and breadth of the country, over twenty million people were tuned into the BBC Home Service to listen to Raymond Glendenning's live radio commentary, including King George VI who was sitting next to the wireless in Buckingham Palace. Inside Turpin's dressing room, the young boxer sat calmly on a bench immersed in a comic book, which was often his preferred reading matter. Never one to panic or become overly agitated before a bout, there was something almost resigned about Turpin's demeanour which worried his Manchester-based Irish trainer, Mick Gavin, his brothers Dick and Jackie, and his manager, George Middleton. Eventually Turpin was encouraged to put down his comic book so that his seconds could slip on his gloves and fasten them tightly into place, and then his threadbare dressing gown was slipped around his broad shoulders and everybody was ready. In keeping with tradition, the challenger would enter the arena first. Shortly before 9:30 p.m., George Middleton opened the door to the dressing room allowing the clamour and noise to greet them for the first time. As Turpin shuffled past Robinson's dressing room, he could hear noise and laughter from within. The American was clearly upbeat and confident of an easy payday and a swift return trip home.

  These days fighters tend to enter the ring to loud, thumping music of their own choice, with laser beams cutting through the air and a razzle-dazzle of a performance that is more akin to the circus than a sporting event. On this particular July evening, the lights were dimmed and the spotlights picked out Turpin as he entered the arena to nothing more than loud cheers of encouragement from those who were able to strain their necks and get a glimpse of the lad from Leamington Spa. Some spectators stood on their seats as the British champion edged his way towards ringside, and then Turpin ducked through the ropes and stepped into the ring where finally he was visible to the sell-out crowd. They noisily and enthusiastically cheered the coloured lad, and then the champion appeared and he, in great contrast to the low-key entrance of Turpin, seemed to revel in his self-assigned role of showman. His hair was slick and straightened, with not a single lick out of place, and he flashed a broad smile for the cameras. As he moved towards the ring, draped in a white robe with a blue silk gown on top, he bobbed and weaved as though eager to let everybody know that he was ready for business. Behind him, like courtiers traipsing after a prince, were his attendants, all uniformly pristine in blue and white tops with the words 'Sugar Ray' emblazoned on their backs. Having climbed into the ring the champion bowed respectfully to all four sides of the arena, and then he turned to acknowledge the challenger who was visibly sweating in his corner. As the announcer began to declare that the feature contest of the evening was about to commence, Robinson made a display of not taking his stool, preferring instead to bounce ominously from foot to foot in his corner, and bang his gloves together as though eager to get the proceedings over and done with. The prince of the ring stared at his English opponent, who appeared to have dead man's eyes, and Sugar Ray wondered if the Limey was yellow. Turpin sat slumped on his stool as though awaiting his fate. From where he was sitting he could see the Movietone cameras already whirring with activity for, whatever the outcome, the newsreel of this fight would soon be broadcast in all the major picture houses in Britain. The referee, an ex-heavyweight from Scotland named Eugene Henderson, signalled to the fighters to ready themselves, and Turpin drew himself to his full height knowing that there was now no turning back.

  A little over an hour, and fifteen gruelling rounds later, Turpin slipped an arm around the American's shoulders and escorted him back to his corner in a gesture of respect. The fight was over and the 18,000 voices in the Earls Court Exhibition Hall were raised as one, singing chorus after chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!'. The BBC's unashamedly patrician Raymond Glendenning, with his handlebar moustache and clipped received pronunciation, posed the rhetorical question to the whole nation. 'Who has won?' Those who were present at the fight had no doubt who had won, but Glendenning kept the whole nation, including the king, on tenterhooks. In the ring, Turpin congratulated Sugar Ray and his corner men, and a breathless champion patted his British opponent on the back muttering, 'Good fight. Good fight, kid.' Eugene Henderson saw that both fighters were in the American's corner and he knew that there was no need for him to consult his scorecard. He walked over and raised Turpin's hand, at which point Glendenning's words exploded across the beleaguered nation. 'Turpin has won! Turpin has won! Turp
in, Randolph Turpin, twenty-three-year-old from Leamington Spa, is the new middleweight champion of the world!' George Middleton, Dick and Jackie Turpin, and Turpin's trainer, Mick Gavin, leapt across the ring and hugged the new world champion, while in the hall pandemonium broke out. The chorus of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!' increased in volume as Robinson climbed his way out from the ring and shuffled in the direction of his dressing room, leaving Turpin to bask in the applause and cheers of the Earls Court crowd.

  Once he reached his dressing room, the new world champion showered quietly and then got dressed. His brothers were clearly far more excited than he was, and they pressed him to tell them what Sugar Ray had said to him. Turpin thought for a moment and then said that Robinson had told him, 'You were good. Real good. Just like everybody had said you were.' Turpin knew that he had fought well, his seventy-four-inch reach keeping Robinson at bay, his wide stance allowing him to maintain his balance, and his upper body strength enabling him to bully the American in every clinch and inflict a wound over the American's left eye that would require fourteen stitches. In between rounds Turpin had remained calm and relaxed on his stool, his legs spread out before him and his elbows resting up on the ropes, but each time the bell rang he sprang to his feet and his superior conditioning and unorthodox crouching style eventually left Robinson battered and exhausted.