The Great White Hopes (14 page)

By 1908, the year in which Jack Johnson first visited the country in his pursuit of Tommy Burns, boxing was becoming a popular sport in Great Britain. The stately National Sporting Club catered for aristocratic and wealthy patrons of the sport, while at the other end of the scale there existed a variety of dubious and occasionally riotous small halls. What was lacking was a visionary promoter who could make fighting with gloves appealing to the middle classes.

The London halls ranged from the Bermondsey School of Arms, with room for only several hundred spectators, to Wonderland, off the Whitechapel Road, capable of housing ten times that number. Some music halls utilised their spare capacity by running boxing tournaments in the afternoon, while scattered about were boxing booths in which local champions took on all comers at weekends and on public holidays. In the smaller halls, preliminary fighters did not get paid by the promoters, but relied on putting up crowdpleasing fights and earning ‘nobbings’ as they went round with their hats afterwards.

The National Sporting Club had opened its doors in 1891 and was widely regarded as the headquarters of British boxing. It was an autocratic, parsimonious institution, with the referee officiating from outside the ring and no cheering allowed during the rounds. It seated a thousand members and their guests, most clad in evening dress. Its season ran from October to June, when tournaments were held on Monday nights. Patrons would usually dine in the club first and be summoned to the auditorium by an electric bell for the first bouts at 8.45 in the evening. It instituted the system of Lonsdale Belts to be presented to British champions, but also undertook the self-imposed ordinance of declaring that only fights taking place in the club would be considered as being official championship fights.

In the more plebeian halls, prices of admission ranged from three pence at the Canning Town booth, where the fearsome black fighter Peter Felix repelled up to a dozen brawny challenges a day, to the newly established Ring on the east side of Blackfriars Road. Here there were three separate bills a week. Ringside seats cost three shillings but cab drivers were allowed in for half-price after ninethirty at night.

Most of the arenas, even the more salubrious ones, could be dangerous places. Fights between betting gangs prowling the halls were common, and an unpopular decision from a referee could easily cause a riot, with glass bottles being hurled down from the gallery at the heads of spectators at the ringside. Sometimes an enterprising pickpocket would turn off the gas lighting at the meter, while his associate ‘dips’ hurried through the gloom, extracting wallets from the pockets of bewildered marks.

One of the worst and most highly determined examples of organised crime at a boxing tournament took place at an openair arena at the Memorial Ground in Canning Town on 31 July 1909. American Jimmy Britt was fighting the British Johnny Summers in their third encounter. The previous two bouts had been spectacular and their rubber match had attracted a huge crowd. Britt had just been knocked out in the ninth round, when a wave of over a hundred thugs rushed into the arena from behind, knocking spectators to the ground and robbing them in an orchestrated frenzy of mayhem. Sports writer James Butler, who was present, wrote, ‘It was daylight robbery on a gigantic, wholesale scale. Watch-chains were snapped, race glasses cut from straps with razors, wallets lifted unceremoniously, even spectacles snatched from their owners’ noses!’

It was estimated that the thieves got away with several thousand pounds that afternoon. The thugs even chased patrons out of the arena as far as the local railway station, knocking them down and robbing them in the street. When matters had cooled down a little and Summers and Britt, the participants in the main event, went to the office to get their purses, they discovered that the entire takings had been stolen as well. Each boxer received only a fraction of his promised purse.

Nevertheless, thousands of fans followed boxing from a safe distance and encouraged the developing search for a national White Hope. However, the sport’s patrons prided themselves, on very little available evidence, on being men without prejudice, as exemplified by a paragraph in the first edition of the magazine
Boxing,
which pontificated, ‘We in this country do not care much if the champion be white or black, so long as he is “a good fellow” and conducts himself as a boxer should.’

The first White Hope to appear on British soil was a most unlikely character. His name was William Ian ‘Iron’ Hague, a former fairground boxer from Mexborough in Yorkshire. He had been given his nickname as a schoolchild because he never cried when he was given the strap or cane. He was also famed locally for his willingness to smash his fist into a brick wall for a halfpenny.

A gargantuan eater, heavy drinker and chain-smoker, the stocky Hague could hardly have been called a natural boxer, but he was brave and the possessor of a heavy right swing. After a brief spell down the pits Hague began to supplement his income by challenging booth fighters for a few shillings at travelling fairs. It was hard work but not as difficult as chipping away in the dark with a pick in 8in of headroom in cold, dark, damp tunnels.

Hague ran away from home at the age of 16 to become a travelling boxing-booth fighter. He fought up to a dozen times a day, scrapping at night by the light of paraffin lamps, with fresh sawdust occasionally strewn on the ground to conceal the blood. Hague was paid twelve shillings a week if he won consistently, while the challengers would get five shillings if they lasted the distance of three rounds. When there were no challengers from the crowd, Hague would go in with the booth odd-job man, called Ginger, who would challenge the booth heavyweight from the crowd in a faked ‘gee’ fight. Fight fans who were in the know would sometimes slip Ginger half a crown to turn the bout into a genuine one, forcing Hague to punch back with all his force.

Soon the big-punching Mexborough heavyweight got noticed, and a local businessman called Billy Biggs offered to become his patron if Hague would allow a well-known local welterweight called Tommy Stokes to spar with him and give his opinion of the big man’s potential. Hague emerged with credit from the sparring session, being given the accolade of a coming lad.

There was no doubt as to Hague’s willingness and power of punch, but thus far he had not been fully tested by the drunken novices challenging him at the fairgrounds. In order to judge Hague’s stamina and courage, a bare-fist fight to the finish, to be held in a field, was arranged with a district colliery champion. Again Hague emerged with flying colours. He was given one pound for his trouble and launched upon his professional career.

At first, the 18-year-old, 14-stone Iron Hague fought almost entirely in the North of England. The powerful youth did well, and after one victory against a miner he was declared the pitman’s champion. Next he was given his biggest challenge to date by being matched in Doncaster against Albert Rogers for the Heavyweight Championship of Yorkshire. When the promoter Billy Bridgewater was asked by what right he was bestowing this title on the winner, he cannily invited his questioners to dispute with the winner his right to be called the best big man in the county. There were no takers.

The bout was held in 1905, with 4-oz gloves, over twenty rounds, for a purse of £30 and a side-stake of £25. Side-stakes were usually provided by the backers of a fighter, who would divide the winnings with their man. Sometimes, before a fight, a hat would be passed among the spectators in order to provide the agreed side-stake. Before the contest started it was agreed with referee Tom Gamble that he would officiate with the side-stakes in his pocket. Before the last round started, he would tot up the scores and, depending upon the action in the last round, he would walk straight over and give the money to the victor as he raised the fighter’s glove.

This was a necessary precaution. It was a custom of the time that, when a fight ended, a decision would not be valid unless the sidestakes had been handed to the winner. If the referee was still adding up his score, the gangs of betting boys would exploit this caveat by jumping into the ring, if they thought that their man had lost, and forming a threatening line to prevent the official walking across and paying up.

The fight with Rogers took place before a large crowd in the Doncaster Drill Hall. Hague had even been given the luxury of a personal trainer before the bout, but had started as he meant to go on by completely disregarding the finesse of the boxing art. When his handler tried to persuade the heavyweight to use his left hand, Hague had merely grunted that he had a perfectly good right and would rely on that. In fact, it was all that he needed against Rogers. He knocked his opponent down with it in the sixth round, prompting Rogers’s seconds to throw in the towel.

As a result of his early successes, over the next four years Hague was gradually matched with better-class opponents, although he was still fortunate to be paid much more than ten shillings a bout. His most notable victim during this period was the black American middleweight Frank Craig, whom he defeated in Sheffield in four rounds. Known as the Coffee Cooler, Craig had once been challenged in a restaurant to a street fight by a 15-stone local bully. When the other man would not go away, Craig excused himself to his companion, saying that he would be back before the cup of coffee on the table had cooled. True to his word he had taken the other fighter outside, chilled him with one punch and returned to resume his coffee and conversation.

Craig had been touring the northern music halls with a demonstration of buck-and-wing dancing and an exhibition of the latest terpsichorean craze, the cakewalk. The dancing was followed by a challenge to any man in the audience to last three rounds with him. Shortly before his bout with Hague in 1908, the black fighter had achieved a certain notoriety after being involved in a riot in Sunderland. In his challenge match at a local theatre, Craig knocked out the steelworks champion with the first punch he threw. This incensed the stricken man’s workmates in the audience and they stormed the stage to deal with Craig, forcing the manager to drop the heavy safety curtain.

Craig locked himself in his dressing room, while the angry crowd waited for him outside. Unfortunately, a black acrobat on the bill, who bore a superficial resemblance to the middleweight, emerged from the stage door first and was badly beaten.

Between fights, Hague usually returned to the tough world of the touring booths. After his victory over Craig, the British heavyweight was regarded as a coming man and was signed up by Jim Watson’s prestigious booth to travel round the different northern fairs. Hague was such a major draw that Watson only hired one other fighter to accompany the heavyweight. This was the bantamweight Joe Goodwin, a veteran of over 300 fights.

It was intended that on their travels Goodwin would meet challenges from everyone under 11 stone, while Hague would take on the huskier members of the crowd. The massive sum of £5 was offered to anyone lasting three rounds with either booth man. As a pound a week was an acceptable wage at this time, the booth offering was large indeed and drew many would-be survivors.

On one occasion, at Northampton, a burly heavyweight of a miner refused to meet Hague, insisting on meeting the 9-stone Goodwin instead. Many of the collier’s workmates were with him, so to refuse the challenge would have risked the tent being torn down. Reluctantly Goodwin gave away more than 4 stone and went in with the big man. Hague and Watson, the booth proprietor, did their best to assist their diminutive colleague. They talked the miner into allowing both fighters to wear lethal 4-oz gloves, instead of the usual ‘pillows’, in the hope that Goodwin would land a few hard blows early on, before the miner’s superior strength told.

Admission prices were doubled, but the tent was still packed. As another way of aiding Goodwin, Watson acted as timekeeper while the burly Hague stood over him, scowling menacingly at any of the miner’s friends seeking to glimpse the amount of time being shown on the watch. They both knew that Goodwin’s only chance was to defeat the miner in the first few rounds.

Goodwin’s initial barrage disconcerted the collier and drove him back. Hague and Watson saw to it that the three-minute round lasted more than five minutes, only ringing the bell when Goodwin showed signs of slowing up. The miner had shipped so much punishment during the extended first round that he came out discouraged and exhausted for the second session. Goodwin immediately whipped over a right to the jaw, knocking the collier senseless. After so much action the crowd went home, happily carrying their semi-conscious champion with them.

Soon afterwards, as a result of his success over Craig, Iron Hague was invited by the National Sporting Club to enter a competition it was holding for novice heavyweights. Hague knocked out all his opponents to win the tournament. In 1909 he was invited by the impressed NSC to fight for the British championship at the National Sporting Club. His opponent was the champion, Gunner Moir, a squat, heavily tattooed man with a good right hand. Jim Moir had last defended his championship two years earlier with a first-round knockout in 169 seconds against Tiger Smith, and he was expected to dispose of his overweight opponent with similar ease.

Hague scored a surprise when he connected early on with his right swing and knocked out the Gunner in the first round. The time was 167 seconds, two seconds less than it had taken Moir to beat Smith. For this Hague received his largest purse to date, £350.

Hague was entering the big time at an opportune moment. Britain was basking in pre-war prosperity, and sporting events were being well attended. Association football, once centred mainly in the north, became a national sport after Tottenham Hotspur defeated Sheffield United 3–1 in the 1901 Cup Final and redeemed the honour of southern clubs; cricket also attracted many spectators.

The new champion returned to Mexborough in triumph and was met by a large crowd. Hague celebrated by throwing handfuls of coins out of his cab window to children in the street as he was driven home. Six weeks later he had the most important bout of his career and one that cemented his position as a temporary White Hope. In the previous year, when Jack Johnson had visited great Britain en route to Rushcutters Bay in Australia, he had promised the committee of the National Sporting Club that, if he beat Tommy Burns there for the title, he would return to London and defend it against Sam Langford at the club.