Fighting to the Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

is quite a feat and when I started managing it, I’m sure it helped my balance inside the ring. I also got a real buzz out of achieving it.
    After the skipping it would be back to some bag work. This was all about jabbing and learning. We’d use bag gloves, made out of thinner leather than normal gloves, unpadded and only 2 cm thick. They cover just the top of the hand, with black elastic on the underside, and really helped me learn how to combine punching and movement in one combination. Mypunches would jab twice. Then left hand, right hook, then straight punching, keeping it straight.
    Then it was on to circuit training. This involved more sparring for ten minutes. The trainer either put you in with a novice or a better boy. You never ended up with someone on your own level. You always had to wear head gear with gloves, a gum shield, groin pads and boots. If you ever actually landed a proper punch the trainer would go potty, ‘Come here you!’ he’d yell. I got a lot of calls like that because I always wanted to beat an opponent, even if I wasn’t meant to land a full-on punch on him.
    I wasn’t the most punch-happy boy there by any means. There were a couple of red-headed tearaways who were always trying to beat the shit out of their sparring partners. One of them once got in the ring with me and came flying at me like a bat out of hell, as if he’d just signed pro forms. He was all excited, swinging, hitting out, and he just wouldn’t stop. I jabbed him off but he kept coming back for more. He was like a little Yorkshire terrier, nipping away at my ankles. Eventually the trainer jumped in and had a right go at him and he was told to go home. But I didn’t have a problem with the lad because I was way out on top of him. I think the trainer was more worried I might kill the boy if he kept chasing me for a response.
    Throughout these sparring sessions the trainer would keep yelling orders through the ropes:
    ‘Move to the side.’
    ‘Keep it tight and keep it tidy.’
    ‘Hold your hands up.’
    ‘Good work. Good boxing.’
    You’d get a nice slap on the back if you’d done well or a nasty glare if you failed to live up to expectations.
    A warm-down would follow, which was just as important as the warm-up if you wanted to avoid any nasty injuries. I’d do a load of stretches, much slower ones than for the warm-up. Then I’d take a gentle jog round a small, muddy makeshift running track in the yard behind the club.
    They even had a sweat room at the club, which was often used to get a boxer to shed a few pounds to make a specific weight for a tournament. Often the boxer would have to lie in there for hours, hemmed between two smelly mattresses, sweating off as many pounds as was humanly possible. Amazingly, it was possible to lose three or four pounds in one session. But I never fancied the idea of being jammed between those two stinking mattresses.
    After it was all over, I’d either allow myself the luxury of a bus ride home if I’d earlier run to the club, or I’d have to run all the way home again if I was out of dough. Each training session at the club cost a quid, which was good value when you consider it was the single most important thing in my life at that time.
    During this period of my life, the old man only made occasional visits home to take us kids out for the day. He’d got himself a flashy-looking two-tone, grey and blue Ford Zephyr, with bench seats in the front that I was always sliding across whenever Dad turned a corner badly. Dad never looked scruffy. He was always well turned out and you could tell from the look on their faces that he had a way with the ladies.
    Sometimes he’d take us out for pie ‘n’ mash. Other times he’d pop in a boozer and leave us in the car with a bottle of pop anda packet of crisps each. The keys would always be in the ignition so we could listen to the ‘wireless’, as he called it.
    One day big bruv John, who was twelve, jumped in the driver’s seat