ONE NIGHT AT YORK HALL

This is how I think York Hall works. Forget the rubbish about the East London venue being the sacred home of great champions because it is not.

It is, once each year, a very, very private and special place. The occasion is the North East London Divisional stage of the ABA championships. And this is really how the place works.

On these nights fact, fiction and pure fantasy blur for a few hours and it is possible to glimpse a slice of London’s forgotten boxing scene. As long as I have been going to York Hall I have heard the “I was a driver for the Krays” joke. Actually, what the man says is: “I did a bit for Ronnie, dropped him off, always available if the Twins needed a set of wheels. Good people they were. Proper people.” I heard this the other day from a man that must have given the Krays a lift on the back of his Raleigh Chopper because he was only about 30!

Anyway, you walk up the steps and go through the door. It’s cold, you go through the next set of doors and into the lobby, with its damp ceiling, two winding staircases and secret doors that go down to some kind of dark and dank basement. On a divs night, the noise of a crowd is the other side of the doors.

The fella at the ticket table fell out with me about 15 years ago when I wrote something that upset him even though I was not trying to upset him. He gives me a press pass but not a smile. He has spent over 30 years putting on shows and running an amateur boxing club and York Hall on a night like this belongs to him. All I can do is respect that.

At the first of the swing doors I bump into Roy Andre. Now Andre is a fighter that only the amateur boxing cognoscenti will know. He fought for West Ham back in the ‘80s and was a quality middleweight but he was at the weight at the same time as Michael Watson, Nigel Benn and Rod Douglas and to win a divs title he had to beat them. He never did but he always tried. Roy is connected to the Peacock amateur boxing club now.

Over by the bar is Terry Barker. He won an ABA title for Repton in 1980 at light-flyweight and last won the divs in 1984 as a featherweight. His son Darren won the Commonwealth Games gold medal last summer in Manchester at light-welterweight. But at the divs, Barker decided to move up to middle to avoid his friend Danny Happe. This year the ABA has introduced new weight categories and welterweight has increased by 2 kilos and light-middle has been dropped. Barker struggled to make light-welter, even though that had altered from 63.5 to 64 and that left him and Happe in the new 69-kilo welter class. Had the old weights stayed, Barker could have moved to light-middleweight at 71 kilos but instead he competed at 75 kilos to avoid his pal. He won the title and so did Happe.

Sitting at ringside is Terry Spinks. He sits silent and knowing, shaking hands with any friends or people that recognise him. He was once, remember, a test jockey for the Kray twins. One of them, the openly gay one, had a picture of Spinks in his wallet. On the other side of the ring and a few rows back is the little fighter that Spinks beat in 1956 to win the flyweight title at the divs. A few rows behind the fella that Spinks beat is Charlie Magri. He won the divs at York Hall and later that same year won the British flyweight title as a pro.

It is business as usual and there are several professional managers and promoters in different sections of the hall. There are also several boxers with their small children and the gaps near the ring are full of pushchairs. It is a unique scene.

On the night a few weeks ago the balcony was opened because of the size of the crowd. It is a big crowd, real big, but there were only 17 fights, which is a long way from the marathon sessions of the ‘70s when the boxing started at two in the afternoon. I can remember one afternoon watching Sylvester Mittee in his Olympic vest defend his title. It was 1977, a vintage year. I also remember walking up from Bethnal Green tube that day hoping that I could get hold of a ticket. Thankfully, I could, but there were divs when no tickets were available and a working knowledge of the labyrinth of tunnels and doors that connect the boxing hall with the swimming hall and the rest of the venue’s attractions was essential. That afternoon two future world champions — Magri and Terry Marsh — won titles and I think that a total of 11 veterans of the divs have gone on to hold a world title. Purists might argue against the figure but even Maurice Hope, Leslie Stewart and John H. Stracey back in the supposed good old days only had segments of the filthy baubles.

It is obvious why the old hall was packed back in 1977: There were more amateur fighters, fewer televised fights, the oral tradition helped keep the sport going and the local papers covered the divs like the tabloids would cover the exploding tits of a Spice Girl.

However, it is not so obvious to me why the place was packed for the latest divs. To be honest I expected a half-empty hall and that was meant to be part of this story, a way to let sane readers know that dear, dirty and condemned York Hall is not the beginning and end of boxing in London’s East End.

Instead, I was reminded of a tradition, a ritual involving the same characters that takes place each February at York Hall. It is a tradition that has nothing to do with professional sport and the heavily documented cameo appearances of world champions inside the ring. The history of York Hall has nothing to do with Lennox Lewis or Naseem Hamed. The real fighters at York Hall are the thousands that have won and lost in pursuit of the divs each year. Anonymous fighters, some of them hopeless, but each February they get to walk out and be part of something that once dominated their lives. If a poll had been conducted at the door the other week I swear over 200 veterans of former divs would have been uncovered.

“I think it was ’67 the first one here. I had Strace [John H. Stracey] and Cheshire [Johnny Cheshire],” said Tony Burns, the most successful amateur boxing coach in Britain. Burns has trained fighters at Repton since the mid-’60s when he quit his career as a leading amateur boxer — he lost a disgraceful decision once to Ken Buchanan — and his fighters have won hundreds of domestic titles, an Olympic title, and three have gone on to win real world professional titles. At this year’s divs, Burns had 17 boxers in the original line-up of just 35. It has been nearly 40 years since his first champion but he was still nervous. He knows what a title means to all of the boxers under his control.

I remember talking to Gerry Cooney two years ago about the highlights of his life in the ring. “Simple, walking out to win the New York Golden gloves at the Garden.” He meant Madison Square Garden. It is the same at York Hall. The divs champions from the past have their day of local glory etched in their minds and often speak fondly about the day they won.

Back in 1986 I was covering the day and night for the London Evening Standard and interviewed Nigel Benn after his win against Rod Douglas. “I have always dreamed of winning the divs,” he told me. Douglas beat him the year before. Benn beat Douglas in the final, but I think he beat Andre, his clubmate in the afternoon and Repton’s Wendell Henry in the semi-finals. Henry was also there the other week. Benn’s nephew lost in one of the welterweight prelims.

At this year’s divs I took a seat next to Jimmy Murphy, the matchmaker at West Ham and a man with an amazing knowledge of fighters. Murphy shames most pro matchmakers and had he ever decided to make a living from the sport instead of just going to gyms and shows five or six days each week he would be a rich and influential man.

“I remember when Roy lost to Nigel. It was expected but a few weeks earlier Roy did Nigel in the gym. Dropped him, so it made it a bit interesting on the night,” said Murphy. The other week Murphy had his eye on Kevin Mitchell. The other week a lot of people had their eye on Kevin Mitchell.

If the venue is demolished then it is possible that Mitchell will be last star to emerge from York Hall, the last young fighter to put his name on the list. The 18-year-old from West Ham stopped Russian-born Ruslan Barabash and Libyan-born Musadi Gadaffi. At the end of each contest it took Mitchell 10 minutes to negotiate an adoring tunnel of kisses and back-slaps. He is now part of that special history, even if he falls before the ABA finals, which take place at York Hall on 4 April.

When the lights are turned on full blast at the end of the evening and the crowd has filed out the full extent of the decay is painfully apparent. There are damp patches in the ceiling and behind and under the stage the series of halls and rooms are in full decline. The squalor is real. There is one filthy toilet up on the stage to the left that has given me the shivers for about 30 years, but it is preferable to the men’s khazi in the lobby, which is generally flooded by the time the featherweights are fighting. “I hope we’re back next year,” said Burns as he walked down the few white steps shortly before midnight. Sadly, there is no guarantee. The council has an annual maintenance bill for £600,000 and York Hall’s future is in the balance.

York Hall, the most historic and regularly used small hall boxing venue in London, may face demolition. If Boxing Monthly readers wish to register their views on this subject, they should write to N. Hounsell, Acting Head of Leisure Services, Tower Hamlets Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London E14 2BE or email webteam@towerhamlets.gov.uk.