LOCKERROOM:Next weekend in Galway the exotic trade of selling fights gets a fresh-faced novice, writes TOM HUMPHRIES
DEPENDING ON your point of view we either owe a lot to or can blame a lot on Richard Kyle Fox, a Belfast man who left the shipyard city in 1874 and fetched up in New York. Before you get around to liking Fox be warned first that you shouldn’t – he was a racist and anti-semite but hated the clergy, doctors and students and corporate leaders even more.
Having worked in Belfast for the Newsletterhe got a job in New York working for the National Police Gazetteand before the 1870s were out he was owed so much in back wages it was easier to make him proprietor when things went bad than to pay him the cash.
So he took over the Gazetteand focused its coverage on sexual dalliances, train wrecks, hangings, murders, immorality of every kind and sport. Every other newspaper man, especially William Randolph Hearst and Joe Pulitzer, learned a lot from him and in that sense we still feel his influence today.
His first major digression was when he conducted a little journalistic experiment with coverage of a heavyweight fight on May 30th, 1880 between the 42-year-old Englishman Joe Goss and the 27-year-old American (but originally from Thurles) Paddy Ryan.
The Civil War had killed off prizefighting and the Goss v Ryan bout was a dull affair noteworthy for just two things. Ryan wore down Goss and the older man failed to come out for the 87th round. Yes, 87th.
And the National Police Gazetteran 400,000 fight editions, each carrying breathless accounts of what appeared to have been one of the great events in sporting history. And the public bought them all. The modern sportspages were born.
Fox had been slighted once by John L Sullivan and Ryan would become his tool of revenge. He got Ryan and Sullivan into a ring in February 1882 and Ryan lasted just 10 minutes. Fox was disgusted..
Most of the history of boxing in the 1880s from Ryan v Goss through to John L’s epic 76- rounder with Jake Kilrain (the last bare-knuckle world title fight) is down to Fox’s vendetta against Sullivan, against whom he pitted and promoted contender after contender. And most of what we know about boxing promoting to this day springs from that time.
Next weekend in Galway the exotic trade of boxing promotion acquires a fresh-faced novice, a man who has been on the sharper end of the sort of prejudices Richard Kyle Fox got away with all his life. In fact, just a few months ago when looking for a spot for a meeting with his business partner, Francis Barrett found himself barred from a Galway pub.
Nothing but the same old story. Frank is a Traveller. A teetotaller and as good living a man as you could meet, Frank carried our national flag into the arena at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics, a gesture which said more about his good nature than about the nation’s ability to change. Prejudice is prejudice and for some people that’s all they have.
Frank isn’t a man to sulk, though. He has a sunny belief in the possibilities of human nature and is an unconquerable optimist and dreamer. Sensing a while ago that times were getting hard, he had that fact confirmed to him when he returned to England for a short stint a while ago.
The hard, honest work on the roads with which he had sustained himself during his own tough times as a pro boxer and beyond had dried up. It was gone for him and for his cousin Colie.
And so the cousins fell back on older ambitions. Colie grew up behind Frank and grew to be bigger than him. He’s 26 now and 6ft 3in and over 16 stone, making him a heavyweight with good feet and a southpaw style like his cousins. When he was an amateur his promise was a given but it was always stop start , stop start with Colie.
He got knocked down, not by a boxer but by a car coming home from school at the age of 12. He didn’t fight again till he was 16 but won the Nationals that year. He got a bronze medal in the world juniors and beat Kenny Egan once. He had a pro career which consisted of six unbeaten fights, not a bad record for a young fella who started his career with a heavy knockdown in his very first bout against Marcus Lee in England. He kept going till a slew of family problems saw him stop again.
After his sister died a year ago Colie began thinking about boxing again and talking about it to Frank. By then the two cousins had worked together in the rings and on the roads for a long time in England.
Frank moved home to Galway last year and while dabbling in the movie business with Blood, Sweat and Wars came across Yorkshire promoter and coach Keith Walker. They spoke about Colie.
Walker took him on the pads and liked what he saw. He brought him to Leeds and put him in with a couple of decent sparring partners and still liked what he saw. Francis said he’d love to put a show on in Galway. Keith Walker thought why not, and so Frank found himself out on the streets of the old city yesterday with a town crier and a huge sheaf of leaflets trying to clear the last of the tickets for next Saturday’s Leisureland bill.
Frank thinks that in a year or two Colie could fight for a European title and nothing would make him happier than to stage that fight in Galway. It could all go pear-shaped, though. Colie’s six-fight record wasn’t spangled with knock-outs and despite being good on his feet there is the danger always of shipping the one big blow which would put him on his back and thinking fondly of returning to working on the roads.
The Barrett boys are putting their fists up and defending themselves against the jabs of recession. Doing it the hard way with money and health on the line. Frank Barrett is too sweet-natured to think that anybody owes him anything but a full house next Saturday and a win for Colie would be the start of one of those romances which only boxing can give.
Ya remember Chick Gillen and little Francis having the entire concept of the Olympics explained to him by the genial old barber? Colie is another Chick boy. Next Saturday, it’s a continuation, a sequel, not a start.
