Wild Thing (16 page)

Joe Pyle was ecstatic. He immediately contacted Billy Smart and secured the use of his Big Top circus tent, which was conveniently not in use and being stored in Windsor for the winter. The fight, if a ten-second brawl can be described as such, was a disappointing spectacle to watch, but it was a huge success for Pyle and Shaw. The moment Donny Adams kissed the canvas, offers to fight Shaw came flooding in from across the country. Shaw fought and defeated Mad Dog Mullins, Mickey Gluckstead and Terry Hollingsworth in quick succession. Every contest was a sell-out, and every contest indicated that the next bout would need a larger venue to fulfil the demand for tickets.

Then one day a young Frank Warren and his brother Bobby strolled into Joe Pyle’s office and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Frank Warren said that he was managing a fighter named Lenny McLean. ‘He’s my cousin,’ Warren said. ‘I know all about him. Lenny has such a big following we could fill any venue that you care to offer him.’ If Pyle and Shaw agreed, they could organise a contest that would be even bigger than Donny Adams versus Shaw. After Shaw gave the nod, Pyle stuck his hand out and a fight between the two East Enders was arranged to take place at Cinatras nightclub in Croydon. Peter Koster, Barry Dalton, Phil Watford (the southern area light-heavyweight champion), two doormen I worked with, Ian Jones and Gerry O’Leary, and I all travelled down to the venue to watch the bout together. There is an awful fascination about an unlicensed fight – the same fascination that makes people slow down to look at a motorway smash. The atmosphere is full of danger, menace and impending doom. The crowd shout abuse at each other and, occasionally, scuffles break out.

When we arrived at Cinatras, somebody started shouting insults at Phil Watford, so he threw a glass, which exploded on the offending man’s head. A large space in the crowd appeared and we found ourselves facing an angry mob. ‘Fuck you, let’s have it,’ we shouted as we advanced towards them. Stewards and bouncers got quickly between both parties, and the trouble ended as quickly as it had began. Everyone’s attention soon returned to the main event. None of us could say with any confidence which fighter would win. Shaw’s recent victory over the ABA champion Terry Hollingsworth had done nothing but good for his unblemished fight reputation. McLean, a giant of a man, had been boasting in the newspapers that he was going to ‘rip Shaw’s head off’. Before the men had even entered the ring, there was controversy. McLean claimed that Joe Pyle had given him doctored boxing gloves. Every time McLean tried his gloves on, he said, they sprang open. After a heated argument between the two camps McLean sent one of his team to fetch a pair of his own. Both fighters looked awesome when they finally entered the ring; we knew we were about to witness a gladiatorial encounter.

When the bell rang, Shaw steamed into McLean, subjecting him to a barrage of body blows. The crowd were cheering and stamping their feet as ‘the Guv’nor’ pounded McLean, forcing him back into the ropes. Nobody could quite believe it when McLean raised his enormous head and roared back at the crowd, ‘Look, he can’t hurt me.’ In round two Shaw flew at McLean again, hammering his body with powerful punches. I could see what McLean’s tactics were: he was hoping to tire Shaw out and then finish him off when he dropped his guard. When the bell went to signal the end of the round, Shaw looked exhausted. His corner men were shouting at him, demanding that he let McLean do some of the work. When round three started, Shaw, obviously ignoring their advice, threw a flurry of punches into McLean’s midriff. Suddenly McLean’s huge frame began to sag. Shaw was hurting him. When McLean finally dropped his head, blow after blow from Shaw found its target. Sensing victory, Shaw stepped back and hit McLean with a volley of vicious punches. Eventually the referee stepped in and declared Shaw the winner by raising his hand aloft. No disrespect to Shaw or McLean – both men had been entertaining – but there was nothing I saw that made me think I couldn’t beat either of them.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the outcome of the fight I had just witnessed had been at best questionable. Shaw confessed to author Jon Hotten in his book
Unlicensed: Random Notes from Boxing’s Underbelly
that when he had been hammering McLean around the ring, McLean had said, ‘Tell him to stop it, Roy. Tell him to stop it.’ Shaw said that he had then raised his hand in the air. I had witnessed him doing this, but I had also seen he was on the verge of collapse himself. The referee saw Shaw’s signal that McLean was no contest and immediately stepped in to declare Shaw the winner. The fight, then, had not run its full and proper course. Both camps now had the opportunity to hype a rematch and double their takings.

I was aware, but didn’t give it much thought at the time, that it was gangsters promoting these events and not the Christian Brotherhood. Money is their Guv’nor, their reason for getting out of bed each morning. They earn their ill-gotten gains by hook or by crook, not through honest toil. Looking back on events, particularly my own fight against Shaw, I was naive to believe I would ever get a decision against one of the gangster’s friends. There was no way the promoters were going to risk backing a fighter in a bout that would lose them money.

I was anxious to get into the ring and finally confront the man I then believed was the Guv’nor. Fights were breaking out in the crowd between the rival sets of supporters. People were calling for calm, others for the opposing fans’ blood. Nosher Powell, a former boxer and stuntman who doubled for numerous celebrities in no less than 115 major films and TV programmes, was the MC. He stood in the ring amid the madness that reigned all around him and, clutching his microphone, appealed for calm. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We have a man in the house tonight who wants to challenge the Guv’nor. Could Lew “Wild Thing” Yates please come into the ring?’

The crowd took a break from fighting and hurling insults at one another to look at what they thought would be Shaw’s latest sacrificial lamb. As I made my way to the ring, I could see the Guv’nor sitting, staring at me. I glared back at him, my eyes fixed on his. The crowd began to applaud me, and people were shouting, ‘Go on, my son, have him! Kill him! Kill him!’

When I climbed into the ring, Nosher Powell bellowed into the microphone, ‘Please welcome the man who is challenging Roy “Pretty Boy” Shaw. Ladies and gentlemen, Liverpool’s hardest man, Lew “Wild Thing” Yates.’ Despite the fact that I wasn’t from Liverpool, I enjoyed the moment. Everyone was on his or her feet clapping and cheering me. I looked across to where Shaw had been sitting, but he had gone. The public had witnessed my challenge. Roy, a man of honour, would now have to face me in the ring. The dream was finally back on course.

In the days that followed, I was expecting a flurry of activity. The date would have to be fixed, a venue found and tickets printed, but nothing happened. Every time I saw Peter Koster, I asked him if he had heard anything from Shaw’s people, but the reply was always the same: ‘Nothing, Lew. All they say is we will get back to you.’ After a couple of months I accepted that Shaw was not going to fight me. He and his manager had used the excuse that I hadn’t got the £10,000 stake money, but now that I had produced it, they had been struck deaf and dumb.

If I couldn’t have Shaw, I decided to go for what people advised me was the next best thing: Lenny McLean. I knew Lenny was a big powerful man, but he had plenty of flaws. His head was always held high, making it easy to hit. He couldn’t box that well and, as Shaw had proved, you could land plenty of punches on him. Don’t get me wrong, McLean was no mug, but I knew that I possessed the speed and boxing ability to defeat him. Peter Koster contacted McLean’s people, and the fight was arranged to take place at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park on 10 July 1978. Now that I had a fight to look forward to, I started a programme of intense training. In no time at all I was weighing in at 17.5 st., my body was ripped, huge slabs of muscle hanging on my frame, and I was loaded with menace. I had never tasted the canvas in a competitive bout, and I was confident that Lenny McLean wouldn’t be the first to make me do so.

I was driving home from the Room at the Top after work one night when I passed a parked police car on the opposite side of the road. I glanced down at my speedometer and, to my dismay, saw that I was travelling at 60 mph in a 30-mph zone. It was the early hours of the morning and the roads were deserted. I hadn’t considered my speed until I saw the police car. I knew that if I slowed down, the police might see my brake lights come on, realise I had been speeding and pull me over. The alternative was to carry on as I was and hope they hadn’t noticed me. Keeping watch in my rear-view mirror, I saw the lights of the police car come on. It then turned in the road, the blue light and sirens were activated and the car came hurtling after me. I wasn’t drunk, but I’d had three pints, so I didn’t want to risk being breathalysed. The police car was quite a distance behind, so I too accelerated. I’d had a good start on the police, so it was unlikely they would catch me, but I knew they would radio ahead and ask their colleagues to either block my route or join in the pursuit.

Wanstead Flats is a large open space complete with football pitches, a wooded area and several lakes. It was nearby, so I decided to pull in there until the police grew tired of looking for me. As soon as I parked, I turned off the engine and my lights and got out of the car. I could hear the wailing police siren approaching, so I hid near a small outbuilding at the far end of the car park. The pursuing car flashed past, showering the hedgerow in gravel. The driver hadn’t even slowed down to check out my parked car, but I guessed that he would be back before too long. I decided to walk home across the football pitches and pick up my car in the morning. I took off my bow tie, wrapped it around my keys and hid them near a set of goalposts. As I walked in the darkness, I could see a figure ahead ducking and zigzagging as it made its way towards me. I wasn’t sure who or what it was. Wanstead Flats at that time of night is inhabited by all sorts of perverts, monsters and beasts who come to peep at fornicating couples and groups. Many of the local inhabitants were conceived on the back seat of a car in the parking area. Some people have even been known to play sport and walk dogs there too. Whoever or whatever it was that was approaching me appeared to be trying to avoid detection, so I assumed its intentions were not good. I walked to the goalpost at the other end of the pitch from where I had hidden my keys and began to urinate. Night was suddenly transformed into day as several high-powered searchlights were switched on and trained on me.

‘Put your hands in the air,’ an amplified voice ordered. ‘This is the police!’ I was pleased to learn that I hadn’t wandered onto the set of some sort of perverted dogging movie, but I was concerned that they wanted me to raise my hands. Surely that indicated they thought I was armed? The only weapon I had in my hand was hardly dangerous. I looked to my left and to my right, but the blinding white lights prevented me from seeing anything. The voice became more hostile. ‘Put your hands in the air or we shall release the dogs.’

My heart went cold – perhaps it was a group of weirdoes making a perverted movie after all? ‘Look, mate,’ I called back, ‘if you are the police, release the dogs if you wish, but I’m only having a piss up a goalpost. Is all of this really necessary? It’s hardly a hanging offence.’ It was faint at first, but soon the sound of rapidly advancing panting dogs became too close for comfort. ‘Come on, come on, good boys!’ I shouted as I turned to see two Alsatians bearing down on me. One ran around me in circles yapping and the other jumped up playfully and let me stroke him. I had kept and bred dogs all of my life, so I knew they wouldn’t attack me if they could not sense danger, anxiety or fear.

When I looked up, a group of ten or twelve puzzled and embarrassed police officers had surrounded me. ‘Put your hands in the air!’ one of them shouted.

‘Haven’t we been through that one, mate?’ I replied. ‘What on earth do you think I’ve been doing out here?’

A sergeant stepped forward, gripped my arm and said, ‘A robbery. Now get your hands in the air so I can . . .’

Before he had finished talking, I had sent him sprawling across the goalmouth. ‘Keep your fucking hands off me, and that goes for all of you,’ I said. I walked towards the tallest officer. ‘I have done no wrong. Respect that fact and I will come with you and sort this out.’

The officer looked at his sergeant, who was brushing himself down. ‘Sarge, is it OK?’ he asked meekly.

‘Get on with it, man,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Just get him in the van and down the station.’

When we pulled away, some of the younger officers were sniggering amongst themselves. ‘Don’t ever repeat this to our sergeant, mate,’ one of them said, ‘but you’ve made our day. He’s had that coming for a long time.’

At the police station I was asked to empty out my pockets and take off my coat. ‘Bloody hell,’ the desk sergeant said, ‘you’ve got some muscle. Do you do a bit of sport?’

‘Yes,’ I replied drily, ‘I play fucking ping-pong.’

Half an hour later I was sat in an interview room opposite two detectives, who quickly accepted that I was on my way home from work and not from a robbery. ‘You still may be able to help us, though, Lew,’ one said.

‘If you think I am going to train those useless dogs of yours, you’re mistaken,’ I replied laughing.

The detectives ignored my sarcasm and said that they knew I worked at the Room at the Top and it was common knowledge that it attracted some of east London’s most notorious villains. ‘You could be our eyes and ears,’ they said. ‘We will certainly make it worth your while.’

‘Can I go now?’ I replied. ‘I am no gangster or crook, but I am not an informant either.’ Ten minutes later I was back out on the street and hailing a taxi to take me home.

A new nightclub called Ripples opened in the West End, and I was asked to work there. I didn’t want to leave the Room at the Top, but I did fancy a change, so I agreed to work an occasional shift there. The club was situated near Trafalgar Square and soon became a magnet for visiting football hooligans who had spent their day consuming vast amounts of alcohol, fighting on the terraces and throwing each other into the nearby fountains. They would turn up at the door dripping with beer, vomit and water, expecting to be let in. Being the self-proclaimed hardest man in Barnsley, Scunthorpe or Brighton cut little ice with the door staff, but we were nevertheless subjected to their threats every Saturday night. Freddie Botham and I manned the front door, and six others policed the inside of the club. Freddie was 5 ft 9 in., 15 st., very thickset and an extremely powerful man. Freddie and Neville Sheen are undoubtedly the two handiest doormen I have ever worked with. As an amateur boxer Freddie never lost a fight on home soil. It was only when he fought in internationals that he first tasted defeat. Forget the shit about fighting that so-called hard men write about in their autobiographies; when Freddie Botham hit you, the next face you usually saw belonged to a member of the ambulance service.