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It is said
that within every man there is an animal, a beast that simmers,
waiting to manifest
this creature caged behind the bars
set by either parents or society's
governing bodies.
Robert Louis Stevenson
in 1885 wrote about such a phenomenon in the book.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
raising awareness to this very fact.
This beast must never
overtake the persona of its host.
It must remain confined.
However,
should the key to its cage be turned, then the beast will rise
with the sole purpose to dominate its surroundings.
Should external forces hold this key,
chaos and disorder would rule.
It is for this reason,
and this reason alone,
the discipline and self-awareness
be the jailors that hold the key to the beast cage.
With both these governing authorities
presiding over its release, David Radford is such a man.
He's the jailer to his inner beast.
However,
within this custodial relationship,
there is but one question that remains.
Who has the power?
Is it the beast or is it
the jailer?
This is my journey.
Hemsworth
A small village in West Yorkshire,
nestled amongst like for like villages
in that area.
Hemsworth first mentioned as far back as the Domesday book,
in 1086.
Then through the ages, in the middle of the 16th century,
it could boast its own hospital and school.
As time moved on in the middle of the 19th century, Hemsworth became
what was termed a one industry town,
and that was that of coal mining.
Now, this lasted to the mid 1980s,
when the pits were finally closed.
Yeah, it was a lively village.
And then when the mines closed in the village
A lot of them men worked down the pit.
So everyone's struggling for jobs and it was like a little depression,
you know, and the entire community was struggling
and at one stage was classed as one of the most
deprived places in Europe.
And then the money come rolling in and it just boosted it and brung it all back to life again.
Now, some men are born fighters.
They come into this world kicking and screaming,
protest, shouting against the handling of the attending midwife
on the 30th of May 1969.
Dave Radford was born into the loving
Radford family,
As his mother, Shirley
and his father, Terry, held him.
Little did they know or could even conceive
what fate had planned for him
as he negotiated the maze of life
where he would emerge
to become Britain's middleweight
bare knuckle champion.
But to Dave, equally as important as that title,
he would become an ambassador for his sport
that the majority misunderstand.
Yeah, it’s good to be back dad. I’ve drove up this morning,
This is where it started, David.
You were born here and we’ve had a lot of good memories it brings back.
Yeah, everything.
Everything comes from this little bubble in here, do you know what I mean,
I've just been up here now to put my clothes in the little bedroom, and I'm thinking,
well, I have not been any for years.
that little, little bedroom like that.
That were my bedroom, you know, absolutely brilliant.
But, 50 odd years of memories
Can you remember Benjy?
That black dog.
He were killing machine.
Can you remember when he got lost?
When you took him to the vet and he got lost
in Barnsley.
And vets must have opened the door
and he got out.
and we used to go around for a long time walking around
looking around, shouting him. And we couldn't find him for 2 weeks.
And then we sat watching telly and he walked what we were endeavoring to monitor.
They were interviewing someone
and he walked along, he walked along didnt he!
Anyway, we got him back.
Yeah, I always remember collecting my scrap
Bringing my scrap home and er,
Getting all in the garden there, it were like a
And then I would ring Gordon up, and Gordon would send the man up
with the pickup and put in all on.
And I used to
make a decent bit of money at that age of 14 year old.
But can you remember that what that you call it, car
that old Ford?
the old Ford car.
Old scrap car. Aye, old scrap car.
And you said, dad, can I knock that to pieces and get the scrapman
to come and pick it up.
So you worked on that car for about a fortnight chopping it.
piece by piece
And then you sent for scrapman and he says
20 quid
Aye, he said if you brought it down whole, I’d have give you 30!
And I spent, I spent two weeks chopping it up.
I remember coming home and telling you I was going to become
a boxer in that gym, that opened down in Hemsworth.
I remember going down first night, and I never, never had a fight in my life really.
I think I had one at school and only won that one because she had asthma attack
went down one at nights
These two young lads think I was 16 at the time
There were two lads about 13
what already boxed and I got in the ring with one of them
and I thought, I’ll be all right here
and he give me a good hiding and then I got in
with the other one, and he give me good hiding
I’ll always remember walking home thinking he’ll not do that next time.
but it happened for six or seven months
They realize what I'm doing then.
Yeah but I never thought David
When you little lad, you were so placid
and so laid back.
I never thought in my wildest dreams you'd have been a boxer.
I know. And I didn't really know myself dad.
And then I didn't know what happened
I always remember having a fight
bit of a do with someone on Crosshills and it wasn’t supposed to have happened.
And it happened.
and I impressed this bloke
and he said to me he‘s opening a boxing gym tomorrow, er Monday
and I walking up home thinking he thinks I’m hard.
and that’s the only explanation I can give I won't have a clue what got
I mean, I often wonder about my friends at school
I haven’t seen them for years and years, but they’re same as yourself.
You said there, never would have thought
Who would have thought that I would have been a fighting man
do you know what I mean
from boxing to cage fighting to bare knuckle fighting to unlicensed boxing,
It was a surprise to myself, you know what I mean.
I wonder if thats where I have inherited my mining days from Dad, doing me,
you know, pipe jacking
and things, where you’ve been an ex-miner.
Did you work at Hemsworth pit?
I worked at Hemsworth
I think I had seven years at Hemsworth.
They used to call it bread and herring pit.
because there were no mechanism,
It was just ponies I think we had two shafts
It was ponies down there then?
We’d had nearly 150
And it was pick and shovel.
You know what I mean like,
just braying at that wall with a pick and shovel
We used to chip a bit out of the bottom
What were er, Were it timber heading
Did you have timber above you?
Oh yeah.
You got to do because you couldnt take your coal
You couldn’t axe out coal.
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, I didn't realize.
Or pit ponies down like in your time and when you were
Mining. Aye that’s
pick and shovel.
And then I went from Hemsworth
‘cause my brothers
I had two brothers, they worked at Hemsworth
My dad worked at Hemsworth
and my Dad’s brothers worked at Grimethorpe
They're was a big family of us that worked at Grimethorpe.
And I did more or less nearly 20 year
with both.
As Dave grew
both Dave and all those around him
actually had no idea what destiny had planned for him,
what role he would need to fulfill.
So at this time he just remained camouflaged with the rest of his friends
and peers, with ill fitting clothes, kicked out trainers
riding bicycles that were a mutation.
Life was hard.
It gave very little praise and even less presents.
that was all apart from his mother.
As Dave returned home from school every day,
she would ask the same question,
And what's my little man been up to today?
What the purse or the wallet couldn't pay for
Dave's imagination funded
and never more so as it paid for entry into Hemsworth's answer
to the complete adventure pack for all children.
Or, basically the collection of derelict buildings
just across the street from where Dave lived.
Once here with his friends, he would join the ranks of soldiers
fighting invading forces.
Now you could say
that was this destiny, preparing Dave for the battles
that he was to have in the future, in the Brickyard pond,
In the Brickyard pond,
in his vessels, with his shipmates, he would fight pirates
and also watch as sea monsters, try to capsize his vessel.
And here the necessity to swim was met with.
Again, was destiny
preparing Dave with upper body strength?
Dave Schooling, his education.
Well, I think it would be fair to say that Dave's education
took more of a hands on route rather than the customary, academic route.
His lessons included canoeing.
Now, again,
was this to prepare Dave for throwing his weight
For moving his shoulders as he put his paddle against the water.
But the other benefit this gave, Dave,
was a somewhat flexible timetable
which allowed him
to sneak back out through the school gates.
To once again walk through his front door
in silence
with the objective to help his mother out
with the housework
as she is self slept upstairs
after finishing a night shift at the local hospital.
At the time in Hemsworth, there was a man that lived on the streets.
His name was Cyril.
People would either walk past him at best
or cross the road to avoid him.
Not Dave.
Dave would go home, make a cup of tea
and take it back to Cyril.
He would then give Cyril
the best gift one human can give to another.
And that was the gift of time.
Dave would sit and listen to
Cyril, listen to the stories that he would tell the boy,
and in doing so,
acknowledge that Cyril was a human being.
Yeah, this was Blue Bell pub.
I’ve had many, many a fight in there and outside, and on this ground.
Never ever caused it, I've always had to defend myself
My first ever fight there
was when my sister Gail rung me up
and she says ‘you need to get down here’
‘there's some trouble’
So I come down
and erm,
there were all big gang should around and everything
they were having a go with my brother
It finished up, this fella
saying you know, and everyone were laughing and things
So I stood there and said, He’ll not fight you, but I will.
Well, everybody laughed then
A skinny little thing
but I were sober
For some reason, I don't know where it come from
I hit him and knocked him to the ground
and everyone was
It just went silent, it went silent.
A change in events, a collision of circumstances.
Now most renowned people can trace this back
to were fate, nudged them to take a specific
fork in the road
and to walk a path
that would lead them to their notoriety.
The young Dave Radford, up until this point in his life
had remained camouflaged,
grouped amongst his friends.
For the first time, Dave Radford
heard the beast, his inner beast growl
as it passed the cage and clawed at the bars
as the young Dave Radford
held his fist skyward and marveled
at what he attained
Again,
Fate had played its hand,
It placed somebody in that crowd,
Dave's friend, Shaun Higginbottom.
Shaun approached Dave and informed him that his father had opened the boxing gym
and advised Dave to attend.
But I was thinking to myself, this lad thinks I’m hard
Do you know what I mean, So I went down and
I ended up
starting my boxing career down there, but
I didn't know how to hold my hands or anything, and
I got a good hiding every night when I went down
And then I started getting better and that
and then when things starting happening, whereas I was
you know, still only a skinny little lad, a eleven stone lad
So whenever I was out and people saying
He’s a boxer
They wouldn’t have it, these big lads
and they’d forever
Take mickey out of me,
It’d always finish up fighting
Do you know what I mean
I’d end up having to hit someone.
it worked every time for me, you know, worked every time.
But,
When I started bare knuckle fighting and it came on YouTube and things
People seen me then
and I'd be able to go out and relax.
So people,
Didn’t want to hassle me then.
Do you know what I mean, Didn’t want to hassle me then.
and they didn’t want to know.
But I’d get a handshake rather than a stare
and it were nice, and thats
I didn’t want trouble, do you know what I mean.
But er,
like I say,
you don’t have to go looking for trouble
It happens anytime
Do you know what I mean.
And when Alan opened
YMCA
of course it were a new thing in the village.
So everybody wanted to have a look
and I went down
and you walked through the door
and that’s when I
when I first got to know you as the would be boxer a type of thing.
I wish you would have turned round to Alan and said
He’s barred!
and I wouldn’t have gone through it!
but yeah I mean,
well, looking back now it’s how we met and we started
we did a lot at Alans and then
starting doing a bit of training at yours
if you remember,
we used to do some pad work upstairs.
Yeah upstairs, I’d converted all the attic.
Yeah
Carpet down and
done walls out and that
do a bit of weight training and that wouldn’t we
not too much like, but a bit of punch bag
didn’t we, and hand pads
hand pads
yeah
That was as well as going to gyms though two or three times week.
That were extra like, wasn’t it.
Yeah, different gyms. Yeah
I was,
I remember you saying from that moment I knew
that you were going to be a fighter, you know, I did like.
Yeah, that's what I knew.
Yeah. Yeah.
But, you seen me with the pro game
Another fighter I got on with
I think it was my first, first professional fight and
He got in ring and
and a few people comments saying, you know
what's this boy
It’s like a welterweight getting in with a heavyweight?
Well, I was stood with your dad
He came out first
like he come out first and he walks to ring
I looks at the dad, the dad looks at me as if to say
he's come out to wrong fight
He's not fighting our Dave surely?
But he was...
and can you remember Dave
Manager said I'm sorry Dave, I won't do that to you again.
Yeah.
afterwards
I wonder how many times he should apologise again and again
‘cause I got to do more than once Pete didn’t I
Yeah, yeah.
But
Dave, you never lost a fight
That was fair 50/50 you never lost one.
Yeah.
You only lost against bigger kids and
but the thing is what it is, Dave,
they look at the boxing record and it says Dave Radford beat by so-and-so,
but it don't say so-and-so were three stone heavier than Dave.
It just said beat by
So they don't see it, Dave do they
They just read a record and think god
Look there, you know what I mean
Yeah.
They don’t know truth
Yeah, I had some
had some very bad mismatches Pete didn’t I really...
I bet, I bet,
75% of the fights Dave were mismatched
Yeah.
but not mismatched in your favour though, Dave.
It was always mismatched in opponents favour.
want it, know what I mean.
Yeah
Two stone
I bet some of them were two and half stone heavier
You know and
Well you see with it
If I’m fighting a guy that’s two stone heavier
I've got everything on me I’ve got the weight
I've got the clinch I’ve got everything but
All it is for him is he’s beating me and
he’s going up the rankings here
and I'm going lower down because
I've not won but
It doesn’t show you there that I’m fighting a guy
I'm up against it all
Do you know what I mean
No, yeah.
I don't know if you remember Dave
We went to one show and we got weighed in
Can you remember a kid called Alan Pennington from Liverpool?
right broad scouse?
No
He gets on scales, chuffing hell, chuffing hell
I’m 11.4
That's right. yeah.
He said
He said, well what did they put you down as?
11.2
Ah well go on then, we’ll make it 11.3
Yeah.
So they put him down at 11.3 and we saw him get on the scales
at 12 stone four.
Yeah, that happened a-lot didn’t it.
It happened all the time
It is scandalous
And that's all just to let the
to make sure fights happen that night
because crowd had paid to get in there
and if there was only 3 fights on
when there should be 15 on
I just seemed to be on the back end all the time didn’t I really
I mean
and you never complained Dave once
I was managed wrong do you know what I mean, but,
best thing that happened to me was
meeting Trevor Carrigan, you know, brilliant
two great trainers there, James Walker and Trevor Carrigan.
All he was bothered about was boxers.
He wasn’t bothered about, you know, making money or whatever.
And that's how it was.
Well, but I mean, he got me the Duran fight, you got me, you know, Copenhagen
Yeah.
I were looked after with him, he got me Belfast and
Yeah.
He got you some decenters didn’t he
Yeah.
He got me up to 9 in the country.
One of the fights that stick in me mind
when I fought Dave Larkin
Dave Larkin
Yeah.
Now, Dave Larkin had a good, good manager.
I think he was Micky Duff
He was
A lot better boxer than me and everything because
He’d been doing it a lot longer and
He fought and been managed properly.
Very good amateur career.
And I was thinking, I ain’t gonna win this one,
but
I wasn’t bothered about that
It was the villages
Do you know what I'm saying
His village, our village and things and
I always remember,
big crowds, yeah
It weren’t just boxer against boxer was it,
It was village against village wasn’t it
Yeah and I was thinking to myself,
I didn’t want this fight, I'm thinking, no, no, no.
But, I took the fight.
If you’d have lost that everyone else would have linched you
yeah, yeah
I’d have been like Guy Fawkes Village.
but erm,
anyway, when that happened,
Dave were a, as I say, a very skillful boxer and everything
and I just couldn't believe on the night it went my way
and I ended up winning on points, but erm
I did not think that were gonna happen.
Well we used to train at a few places didn’t we, we used to do
obviously, YM with you
when we first started
then over to Batley in Dewsbury
But then we’d also do my loft, didn’t we
Yeah.
And then can you remember Dave when we used to go above King's head
Me and you and then Eddie faces started coming and that.
But it was always Pete
It was always after work wasn’t it because
Yeah.
Still had to work, doing a
working
eight, nine hour shift and going straight home, bathed,
straight to the gym again, do you know what I mean
Most of them boxers in the gym, they've been in bed all day.
Yeah.
So they would have more energy wouldn’t they, and
Thats how it was.
On our nights off not going to the gym,
I’d be up at yours in the loft,
Yeah.
We'd be doing a bit of light weights.
Yeah, bit of light weights
I always remember it was never heavy weights
We had a punch bag up like
Punch bag up and hand pads
bit of sparring
It's always our favourite isn’t it, hand pads
Yeah.
It’s always our favourite exercise isn’t it.
Yeah.
Your getting your power out there.
Yeah. You get your power. You get your timings.
Yeah
You get your speed
you get the lot don't you.
But going back to work,
As I say I’ve worked with you over the years
But erm,
I remember being at Barnsley I was pipelaying there
I was on 10 hour shifts
and I get up in the morning and I used to
a 4, a six, a eight and a 4 (miles) run a week.
You know on a morning I’d get up at 5am
running
get back, have a bath
I’d go in my car, start work at 7am
I'd finish at 5pm
get in my car
still in Barnsley, I’d go down road and park it up,
James used to come pick me up
and then I’d go from there to Huddersfield.
Pro-Gym there, I used train in there
I get back about half nine at night
get in the car and come home
I’d be out the house 18 hours some of the times
and, not a lot of boxers did that
I mean, a lot of years wasn’t it
Probably going back what,
about 35 years since you walked through that door down there
Yeah, yeah.
When's the next fight tha’ say
I like that ending...
I love that ending...
Hey, you think I'm joking?
don’t you
You think I'm joking?
Don't let Michelle here you, don’t let Michelle hear you.
This is where my first gym was
I think I was
maybe
19 / 20, or something like that
But this place itself
It were my drinking place when I was younger
and I've had a lot of fights here do you know what I mean
People from other villages that erm,
that needed disciplining, do you know what I mean because
they’d come and they’d
see a small little lad like me and
looking at my reputation
what I had they couldn't believe it sometimes
Do you know what I mean
I’ve fought many a fight in this pub and
George and Bell across the road
but yeah I did a lot of fighting up here but
I remember one day
I think was me and nasty Neil Neil Coleman we was
fighting on the floor
we were giving each other some fists and was
smothered in blood
and door opened
and I just managed to look to the side and there was a
A fella with a
youngish lad, maybe 12 or 13.
and when I looked again they was
They were like that.
And then we carried on
And then we’d finished
I could hear these
going down the steps
So I jumped up and went after them and said ‘hey’
‘What do you want to join?’
He said I’ve come here for my son to join, he said.
But this is wrong place for me, he said.
Wrong place for him, he said.
But I said, No, no, no.
You've got it all wrong.
And I explained to him, but yeah, I've had some very nasty sparring sessions up there.
You know what I mean, very nasty and
Neil Coleman, Gav Keane
There's er,
I started with young George, I mean,
young George Probert was up here
Mark Oates
On a Sunday morning sometimes
I’d shout Mark or Mark would shout me
Do you fancy a couple of hours like but,
Nice and steady, we both agreed nice and steady.
So I'd say yeah, anyway
Probably Mark would get me in a
we were fighting on the floor then
He’d get me in a move and I couldn’t get out of this move.
and I wasn't going to tap...
the only way I could get out of it was maybe drop head on him.
So I’d drop head on him
and that were it then
and then
4 or 5 elbows into chops he’d to get me then
Sunday dinner would be in the bin and
soup again because I couldn’t open my mouth to get my
dinner in, chew my ‘taties
but erm
yeah this has been absolutely a god-send to me.
You know, being on my own doorstep.
Now, Dave may have found his first gym
a place where the
underdeveloped and ill coordinated limbs of this juvenile
beast would learn and be developed.
The place was within the bull ropes.
Their strength gained
and their movements coordinated by pitting himself
against outmatched opponents.
Now, Dave's development as a boxer got to such a point
whereby the custody of this young fighter
needed to be given to somebody who had the ability
to see his full potential,
as well as the aptitude
and the skill to place Dave onto a world stage
where everybody could see the level he had attained.
Now, that man, being no other than James Walker.
We got an offer for a real step up for Dave.
And this guy called Davey Johnson
Everyone was talking about him. They thought he was the new
Herol ‘bomber’ Graham at the middleweight division.
He was, hit you and you never hit him, he was
moving all round, beautiful skills
really really really good boxer and we were fighting with him
I think it was a ten round or an eight round, a fight.
And, and we started losing the fight because Davey Johnson was a better boxer.
Far better boxer.
But
Dave's determination and Dave's belief.
I remember we went out for the round and he was
and it was Davey Johnson was just getting the better of him.
I said, you’re gonna have to get to him and he knocked Dave down.
And it wasn't the strength of the punch,
it was the accumulation of lots of punches, you know.
And I said to him, determination, determination.
And he got a bit frustrated because he couldn't.
And anyway, they came into the corner right above us.
and they were there and Dave just let this left go
and he was just up, just pop and it went that far
and it crumpled and he was gone and
Dave knew it hurt him.
And Davey Johnson, he was fine in the end.
He went to hospital, unfortunately, but it was unbelievable.
And it was like, wow, well, you know, this is amazing.
And he beat Davey Johnson.
He had his strength
That was his strength he had his determination.
But he could, his hands were dynamite
he could hit with both hands and they were and they were heavy hitting hands.
And Dave had a fantastic jab.
One of the best jabs I've ever seen.
Real solid jab, they hurt.
The hurt as hard as any most people's
right hands.
And then we got a fight with a kid called
Martin Jolly
What a tough lad Martin Jolley was
Classed as a journeyman
But if you beat Martin Jolley you were a good fighter.
He was so tough and I knew it was going to be a tough fight for Dave.
I knew it was, and we trained hard for it.
And again, I said to him, It's all about that jab.
It's all about that
that devastating punch.
And he beat Jolley and he sickened Jolley.
and in the end, Jolley came up to me at the end of the fight and he said,
he says, I've never been as hard with a jab
and Jolley as fought the majority of the middleweight champions in England.
And he said, ‘I've never been solidly hit as hard.’
And for that kid to say that was, was amazing.
And then we got the call to go to Belfast
and we went over and we were fighting the next big thing, Danny Ryan
and Danny could punch with both hands, but he was a little bit
like Davey Johnson, very slick, very good boxer.
The first time I fought him, I got a draw with him.
It was very close and I got the draw but I did break my
break my hand in the second round so I fought, I fought
another 4 rounds with a broken fist, I think it was a 6 round fight
and yeah, Danny was a nice lad
But then I went to Africa,
I come back from Africa and I jumped in with Danny again for the second time
and he stopped me in the second round.
And he put me down.
I got back up saying I slipped, which I thought I had slipped.
But when I've watched it back now I know he puts me down and then Referee
joined us together, we fight again. And
He ends up stopping me, Referee stopped him
He’s a cracking lad is Danny
You know I had a good erm,
A good conversation with him, we talked about his
obviously Irish are my grandmother are both Irish, so
we had a good crack together, it was alright.
Once again, fate would dial the phone,
but this time it would be James Walker that would pick it up.
And the voice coming out of the earpiece
would offer Dave a monumental point in his life,
as well as a fantastic opportunity
in his boxing career.
So, of course, when I put phone down,
where are you?
And if I remember I was ringing around everyone ringing your dad, ringing home
and no one knew where you were.
I was at my sister's plastering
I’d got a couple of week off work
and she wanted some work doing
and I was plastering her kitchen.
and I was halfway through, I’d got it
I got it on the wall and everything.
I think you rung Michelle,
you said, you know, I’ve got you a fight
We have to fly tomorrow, It’s South Africa,
I says, ‘South Africa?’
He says ‘yeah’, I says
‘yeah, no worries’, he went
‘well don’t you wanna know who you’re fighting?’
I says ‘Who am I fighting?’
He went, ‘Roberto Duran’ I went, ‘he’ll kill me!’
But, you packed your bag as quick as anything
and to your credit, you never asked how much the purse were
we were just down and
and straight down to Heathrow
and we drove
from the airport to the center of Johannesburg
and we got out the van. And
it was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life
walking if you remember.
I remember that it was
It was a very scary place, looking over my shoulder all the time wasn’t it
Well, it
You could hear you remember those gunshots
all the time
and then it was gloves on time.
Do you remember that? Do you remember when the gloves went on?
Yeah, I remember then
that's when my head went into shape.
And I said right, you know, this is it now
I'm going out to war, and now I remember I always go into that mode,
you know, when I put the gloves but I was very nervous, you know,
it didn’t matter because them people didn’t know me
but it was who I was fighting do you know what I mean
and I’m just thinking to myself, you know
I've watched this man on television and I always thought he was a beast
Do you know what I mean and then I'm getting in and fighting him.
So yeah but, I was
very, very nervous.
I mean, it was let's be honest, he was number three in the world.
And you were, I don't know,
200 in the world at that point, the world before you fought him.
So then the knock on the door came and it was time for us to, to go in.
And the security guard opening the door and just being hit
by the cameras and the lights and the people.
And we came down and they walked us through.
But yeah, that took it for me.
It was breathtaking looking at the crowd and everything and that
But then I’m mooching around there all of a sudden I looked at the side of the ring
and who were at ringside there, one of me heroes, marvelous Marvin Hagler
suffering Jesus
I was gobsmacked.
and same as when Duran got in the ring
the first thing I want to go over and shake his hand and say
you know he was one of my heroes as well and
and I was fighting him, so it was
So I had to keep myself in that zone and you know,
forget it all day, forget it all. And
but yeah, it was
in that ring it was
It was a dream, you know, what you see on television
and fighters get into ring and there's all this crowd there and everything
and it happened for me do you know what I mean and
yeah it was
amazing, it was brilliant
but to fight in that heat
and to fight 3 minutes rounds, and to fight Duran
I was thinking to myself this is, this is not looking good.
This is not looking good specially with the heat but
Like I say, ding ding, round one started
When I was fighting Duran, I was struggling with the heat and breathing
but it was different class.
you know, a world title level you know to a British
title more or less type of thing or someone in the top ten.
It just seemed to be his body movement
He’d come to the body bang to the body
and you were tense, you had to tense up
to take this shot, big hard shot to the body
and then he’d more or less know
he might stick a jab in me
knowing then
I could breathe
to get my air
soon as I’ve to, breathe
your man would drop downstairs and
come in again, do you know what I mean, and it was
his skill level
knowing when I breathing when I wasn’t breathing,
when to hit me, when not to hit me, when I needed that air.
Your man would drop down and put it in again so that I got
short breaths, you know what I mean?
And that's a different level altogether, you know, world champion
You know what I mean?
I think five time world champion.
I end up having an hernia operation after that.
I ended up
He hit me low, er,
three or four times
I noticed when I was getting in the shower I got a
lump and I'm thinking, you know what is this
he bust the wall of my stomach
and I ended up having an hernia operation.
and a lot of fighters will agree with me on this
you can get up from a good chin shot
but you won't get up from a good body shot.
When you get one in the rib cage there
A good body shot your not getting back up from that
before 10 do you know what I mean?
This one I went
into a dressing room afterwards, erm,
To meet, to have a proper meet with him.
Absolute gentlemen.
These gloves.
These gloves what you’ve hit me with a few times
These are the original gloves
I fought Roberto Duran in these gloves.
They gave him me them on that night.
They gave me them, to put on.
I went to Duran's dressing room
and they agreed I could have the gloves.
And your man signed them there
they're better than anything. You know what I mean
they're better than anything. And they've got his DNA on, my DNA on
They are the original gloves I fought Roberto Duran in, and
They might have a bit of Michelle’s DNA on, ‘cause
She’s hit me with them a few times, haven’t you
There’s this one here
Hemsworth boxer, verge of top ten.
I always wanted to
I've always wanted to get in top ten,
you know, I used to buy boxing news and read it and
look at ratings and things like that and
my dream was to be in the top ten.
And I fought Duran and then ended up being in the top ten.
So I was really, really pleased with that.
The Roberto Duran fight propelled Dave up the rankings
and the wave that he rode and allowed all in the boxing world to see him.
But as we know,
all waves at some point must come crashing down.
And when they do so,
they change the landscape.
When Dave's wave came crashing down,
the view of his boxing career
changed forever.
The accident broke Dave's bones,
but it also fractured his boxing career.
When I had that accident at Huddersfield
that were a bad situation that.
Yeah, yeah.
Well I remember when that happened
getting a phone call,
off your ex-wife called me and will I take her to hospital, you’ve had an accident.
So again, I flew through
seen you laid there
absolutely devastated because the fine fit young man that went to work that day
was in just in a horrible place, to me
you were on death's door.
They reckoned it would have killed any normal man
It probably would have.
Say I was down, down the shaft, 48 foot deep.
So we're digging, digging away.
And then every now and again, you sink the shaft.
You push the shaft from the top.
But every time we're pushing the cage would come down, we'd get in the cage.
Then we'd go out of the shaft
But anyway, the top man had gone away to the toilet
and then Patsy shouted to me, he said, ‘We're going to push’
So I give him thumbs up.
I carried on because usually it take about 5 minutes for cage to come down.
So I'm walking away and then all of a sudden I put jackhammer into the ground
and John got out of the machine
and
I never looked up, but I was waiting for the Cage to come down.
Then all of a sudden, the shaft dropped.
It went
John went ‘Borrrr’
and I laughed at him, I remember laughing at him.
But I didn't know what had gone off was
Patsy said to your man, I'm going to push
Well he’d
the top man had gone to tip, gone to the toilet.
So the engineer walking by
so he pushed a button to push the shaft
and not knowing, you know, what he should have been doing.
And as the shaft dropped
there were some metal shoes that weighed just about 2 stone.
and they fell in
there were four, but two were on rope
they weighed two, two and a half stone
er, one
hit me on top of my head
but luckily enough them helmets George
You know what what I mean, you think that they’re nowt are they but
Yeah.
That saved me
That hit me on top of my shoulder and broke
broke my collarbone, big plate in my collarbone
my jaw, six vertebrae’s in my back I’ve crushed
but I was the lucky one
John bless him, he
he ended up paralyzed like, he’s in a wheelchair now but,
No, it was a sad time, it was horrible
to see two fit men going to work one day
one mistake from one man that has knackered two lives.
I woke up and looked
and there was about this much water in the shaft
it were all red
There were paramedics here, so I don’t know how long I were out.
Well, fire service had to get you out.
I was looking around thinking, what's going on?
And then that just got John in a stretcher who, took him out.
Anyway, the story behind it, when whatever the inquest, the inquest
them shoes what fell in
the weighed two and a half stone, and were traveling at 60 mile an hour
and weighed just over a ton.
Well I lucky enough
Well unlucky enough to go visit the site and I looked into the shaft
and it was, I don't know how many meters it was
but it was scary the fact that something of a substantial size
and weight could fall off the hydraulic ram that it was connected to.
It could have been a simple safety pin that stopped it doing that
It nearly killed two men.
Paralysed one man, that’s
Yeah.
but anyway that was work experiences and you live and you learn
That, as I say I were a
young fit man then that
professional boxing license was took off my straight away
so I had no license
Obviously your license got taken away from you, your boxing license.
which you loved boxing, training, fighting.
So you had to move on to something else.
Well, what could I do, British board of boxing control
took your license away from you.
Never asked if they could
No, no, they didn’t have to, with the condition of you.
Eventually went I
when I could walk and get myself back right, I had to try and clear me head
because I was down and depressed because I couldn’t work
I ended up going for long walks.
And I remember
Sunday morning taking me daughter for a walk, I was taking Becky.
We got to the gate and I looked into the cul-de-sac
and I saw a car on fire...
Part of Dave's rehabilitation.
to aid him back to a full recovery
was to take a daily walk.
On one particular morning, he set off with his daughter Rebecca,
with the aim to walk to the local shops.
Now, as Dave exited his front gate, he would normally turn right
on this particular morning
he actually looked left
there in the street was a parked
car stationary without its engine running
and he couldn't
understand what drew his attention towards this car.
But as Dave approached, he started to see thin wisps of acrid
smoke escaping from the vehicle
through the window seals.
As Dave approached the car, he looked through the blackened glass.
The sight that met his eyes stopped his heart
and lifted his stomach.
There in a child seat,
was a small child, motionless,
Dave frantically opened the door
and with a strength that he could not fathom,
assisted by the heat of the flames, he held both sides of the child seat
and ripped the melting plastic straps from the car.
He held the child in the street, wishing the fresh,
clean air would fill the child's lungs.
Dave's next action was to run back down the path.
That only seconds earlier, he'd walked up
to dial 999
and contact the emergency services.
Now, it is said
that there is a plan for all of us
a predetermined screenplay
that at times we cannot understand.
Now, if that block of steel hadn't had fallen
or if Dave hadn't been in the bottom of that pit.
Would have been anybody
to pull that child from the burning car.
And if, in fact, there was, would they have had the strength
to rip the child seat from the anchoring straps.
I remember I went to Doncaster
and I was in the dressing room with Neil and Gavin and I just said
So whats up with him, he said
His opponents not turned up.
I went, oh right.
So I just went over and I said to him,
‘Are you all right?’ He said, ‘My opponents not turned up’
I said, ‘What do you weigh?’ he went, ‘14 stone’
I says, ‘I’m 14 stone, I‘ll fight you’ He say’s ‘what?’
I says
‘what it is mate,
I've been to shows and my opponents not showed up in boxing.’
I said, but it does, it's upsetting.
I said, But I’ve done a bit of cage fighting training
but if you wanna have a fight tonight, I’ll fight you
You sent me to the car for shorts
And I’ve got a pair of shoes on
And I mean, I had my shoes
We’d gone to watch
Then I walked in and
First ever cage fight you gave a good account of yourself.
Yeah, I ended up beating this guy, but erm,
I’ve took lot of fights on short notice
When I fought
Michael Bisping, that was another one.
You realise that he went on to be a UFC champion.
He never did, did he?
The thing is with you, you turn up
You don't care what the man is on the other side of the, your opponent.
You’ll just turn up, and have a good go.
Give a good account of yourself.
Like you say, although you lost to him
He’s turned on to be one of the greats.
but you’ve never turned a fight down yet...
No, but I wish I’d have stopped at home that night.
Well, you’ve seen it how it happened, when you go
when you go to these bareknuckle fights.
and it’s, when it first started a long time back
in nightclub, F-club
You’d go and your opponent would turn up so it’s
Well you look same size him, you fight him.
You know nothing about the man, nothing at all. But
if he
If your game enough.
if you want to fight you have a fight and that’s it
It’s
Win, lose or draw
Yeah, it’s
taking part and
having a good old scrap
to walk away and people say
'That were a right scrap that’ that time you know it’s
I want to win every time but If I don’t win, as long as it's talked about that fight
do you know what I mean, it’s
it’s erm,
giving people the money's worth, do you know what I mean.
Dave Radford in side control here
and he’s tapped! He’s tapped!
Mark Goddard what’s he doing? looking at the ring girls?
Come on Mark, the guy has tapped.
Oh nice.
And there we go, he’s seen it now he’s stepped in
beautiful, beautiful on one hour’s notice
Dave’s been in there with everybody, he’s a good fighter
a tough guy, a hard man, a very hard man, well done.
When you’re used to having all that
well do I call it punishment?
What I'm saying all that, all that aggression,
the fighting and things like that.
And then all of a sudden to say it stops
you don’t do it anymore
It doesn’t just stop
You know what I mean, you carry on, yeah, er
So yeah I got no license
so I ended up training people actually, and then
when Neil and Gav Keane come down
They asked me, you know
with a bit of boxing skill
because we are cage fighters, and I asked, ‘What’s this cage fighting about?’
Anyway, they
showed me what is was about
you know,
kicking and things and it was a lot harder than what I thought
do you know what I mean, and er,
Then I ended up
training with them at Andy’s place and
having, having a
you know some brutal sessions, you know kicking shin on shin, blocking
Oh, It was savage but
I jumped in and ended up fighting
Ian Rush
and then I fought another guy
He were well up there but I can't think of his name
but when I, when I jumped in with Ian Rush
I beat the man, I beat the man.
and then for some reason I ended up fighting him again.
And what happened, what happened with Ian Rush
Second time I fought him
He put me in a chokehold, a rear naked choke.
and he started squeezing and
obviously you’re gonna go to sleep, your on the way to your bed.
And what your man did
He got me in this choke, I was going to sleep
I thought, I ain't. I'm not tapping. I'm not tapping.
So I went to sleep.
But when I come round I was shaking, I was shaking.
So I always thought to myself, if anybody gets me in that choke again,
I felt embarrassed.
So I thought, I'm going to I'm going to definitely tap.
And I fought this other guy really up there I can’t think of his name
you know, skillful.
And then he got me on the floor and put me in a rear naked
and he put me in a rear naked choke
and he was sending me away to sleep
and I tapped like this and he wouldn’t stop.
and I were going to my bed
anyway, when I
when the referee stopped it, I jumped up and I kicked off because he didn’t let go.
He showed you disrespect, but he showed it to you.
Yeah,
So I was a bit annoyed over that but
I tapped because
I was embarrassed when I went to sleep last time.
When I come around I was shaking it and I just though no.
Nigel Benn, I got in with Nigel Benn
It was all for charity, for a young lad bless him, he’s
You know, it was
money to be raised.
And we knew when Nigel said to me, don't you try knocking me out.
I knew straight away, I’m not gonna mess about with Nigel Benn
or he’d put me to sleep.
If you’d had seen him training in that gym
In that dressing room
You wouldn't be messing with him.
No, that’s what I’m saying, I knew for a fact
so that's why it was just
playful stuff because
I knew if I tried to try a silly shot with Nigel
He’d have put me away to my bed straight away do you know what I mean.
So I just
No, its respect in it.
and that’s the big thing.
And it don't cost a penny that respect, you know what I mean and
And that's, that's why a lot of these fighters
It’s the same with the bare knuckle fighting,
A lot of people look at me and think
you must be nasty horrible people and things like that
No, it’s, you don’t have to be nasty horrible to be a
to be a fighter, do you know what I mean?
But people don't realise afterwards that I'm all right
The first day when I'll get up, the next day I'm all right
for me, for some reason, the third day
when I've had a good scrap like
same as James McCrory
yeah, James McCrory the second fight,
It was, you know, brutal and
that’s my medicine
that’s your love, that’s what you need
Yeah it's, just it’s weird.
I once travelled down to Hinckley with Dave Radford.
He picked me up he was
invited
They were having a few of the known fighters around the ring it was at a
working men’s club in Hinckley
and, er,
Dave said, well, I don't have to pay in here because
he said they know I’m coming, I've got a seat ringside.
I thought, well, I'd like a seat ringside.
So as Dave got
to the door to where the security men were
he just said to him, Dave Radford?
Yeah, he said yeah yeah, I know who you are mate
in you go
I said, ‘Dave Radford’s trainer’
He said yes, in you go, go and get a seat.
So we’ve finished up both sitting ringside and, er
just before the first bout word came about
one of the fighters had not turned up and
Dave just went, erm...
I'm just trying to think if I've got any shorts in the car
He said, only I don't want to, I’ve got my best jeans on
I don't want to get blood on them.
I said, Well. Why are you going to fight?
He said, Well, if you don't turn up like I'll I'll stand in for him.
I said, ‘you don't know who you're fighting, Dave.’
He said,
I don't bother about that.
He said, Not really, don't really concern me.
I said.
Surely you want to know. He said, no, I'm not really bothered.
Anyway, it turned out like it was a heavyweight bout.
Fame and glory my lad, fame and glory.
Get it done, Radford.
and the man who’d not turned up was fighting a big
I would think about 6 foot 4
man, who must have been about 17 stone
I said ‘oh but look at the size of him Dave.’
I said
and I said
the size of him don't worry you Dave? Not really.
He said, I’ve fought big en’s before, he said they look even bigger
you know when you knock them out and they’re laid down.
I’m gonna tell you a story.
When I working in Barnsley, Barnsley town center, we’d sunk a shaft
And anyway, we got this shaft sunk and job done.
And boss said to me, ‘what, you like at block paving?’
I said, Oh, I'm perfect, so
It was a really big area it was to block pave.
Anyway, Saturday afternoon
I'm working away there and
we've got this big harris fencing around, you know,
obviously to stop people walking by us and things.
So when we are working away there
I could hear this bit of noise, I was on my knees
putting blocks down and what was this noise
I looked to the side and there was a man there
He got the old queer fella out and he was having a pee
I looked up at him and he was just staring at me
you know, giving me the eyes
and there was about 6 of them that were sat on a bench.
That's where they come from.
So, anyway, your man had finished and
I looked at Darren, and I said, Darren
‘Where are the CCTV cameras around here?’ and he says,
I don't know why he says
I’m gonna go off my head in a minute.
And anyway, I've got a Stihl saw at the side of me.
and as this saw was at the side of me
I could hear these two
fella’s talking with these other fella’s
and he’s saying
if I take that saw off him, can you sell it?
he says, I'm telling you now, I can sell it...
You know
He said well,
get it off him and we’ll have a bit of money off it,
then all of a sudden the lad turned around and he said
I'll go in there and give him a good hiding
and we'll take the saw.
So I looked across, and says ‘give me a good hiding?’
he says, ‘Yeah.’
And I jumped up, pulled my helmet off, pulled my top off
and went running around and, your man who tried peeing
He came towards me first
and I banged him with a beautiful left hook
he dropped to the floor, the other one who come
straight forward I hit him with a lovely right hand
and other one grabbed hold of me, both grabbed each other
He was trying to bite me, he was doing this
but
What happened was, when he was trying to bite me
I was pushing him away, and he was pulling towards me
Your man who I’d hit with the left hook
Who were crumbled on bank, side of the bank
He were getting up?!
I kicked him in face to make him stop down.
And as he went down again,
this guy was pulling me towards him and I was pushing,
I just let go with my hand
Bang!
I dropped in with head
So as he fell down,
he fell onto the harris fencing.
So when I banged with that left hook, and kicked him, your man still got up
he jumped in the compound to me and as he jumped in
I heard this
someone talking and when I looked it was two traffic wardens.
They said to this lad
I wouldn’t go in there if I were you mate.
Anyway, he come towards me
and I was shaking right hand
He were looking at right hand and soon as he looked at right hand
Bang I let go with left hook
Bushka, he’d gone, again
anyway
as I’m messing around with the fencing these
three blokes picked themselves up
but police were, police were coming
anyway they just run off these fellas
and Sunday morning, I were working away me and Darren
and these two policemen
come walking by and your man said
‘Do you have any more trouble with them go off?’
I went, ‘No,’ I says
They never came back.
He said ‘no they didn’t come back, we locked the up’
I said, ‘Oh, sound, sound.’
He says, ‘bloody hell, you can fight can’t you?’
So I said ‘yeah I was only defending myself.’
He said, we were watching it last night on
CCTV camera, and he were pointing up, it was just above us, camera.
and I laughed and I says
‘Is there any chance of a copy of the video?’
He said, don't push your luck.
Dave was now fully aware as to the presence of his inner beast.
He was also aware of its capability, its capability to mete out
discipline to those that required such a life lesson.
Now, Dave
would be the jailer to this hidden persona.
It was he that would decide
whether to turn the key in the lock of the cage door
anti-clockwise, granting this beast freedom.
He would then use self-discipline as the referee
to call time on its liberty
before once again turning the key in the lock on the cage door.
But this time it would be in a clockwise direction.
The beast needed a cause.
He needed an outlet.
and the exercise yard
the jailer discovered, was in the shape
of a ring of bales,
an arena for bare
knuckle fighting.
Now, in order to understand this sport,
as well as its code of conduct, there is actually no one better placed
to do so than that renowned bareknuckle boxing promoter
Andy Topliff.
Where did it all come from?
Basically, it started off with Elizabeth the 1st
Now Elizabeth the 1st
she allowed pirates, right.
She allowed her sailors
As such, there was no such thing as a paid army in those days.
You got paid when you were at war and that was it.
And we was at war with France for over 100 years.
So we was always at war with France.
That's just standard.
Elizabeth the 1st, the first she actually
she allowed Sir Francis Drake and so on
to become pirates.
They had these great big swords and they had great big spears,
you know, on their ships.
And they had all these big fancy weapons which on the battlefield
would scare the hell out of you.
But the Brits were well known for always winning.
And the reason why is because Sir Francis Drake,
he basically worked out in his head, that,
don't use big swords don't use big spears
just use knuckledusters use small swords
but teach every single man on the ship how to fight.
He had to know how to box.
If their weapon fell on the floor, they had to know
how to get the guy, heatbutt him, knock him out and do the business.
Okay.
Anyway, when these soldiers all came back home,
they didn't have anything to do because you only got paid when you at were war.
So basically the way they made their money was by fighting in taverns.
You know, the pubs
They used to go into these pubs
and they used to have to fight for the money. Now,
when the Civil War happened, they realised
that they were onto something here.
they made something called the new model army.
And that was the Royalists.
And then you had the parliamentarians.
Now every single soldier had to
learn how to fight
if the weapon got dropped on the battlefield
if they dropped their weapon, they had to learn.
And it was called milling.
And it was because the old millers
years and years ago, they were tough blokes.
and milling stayed with the Brits in the British Army ever since.
And what it was when these guys
came out of the army, as I said, you know, they had this big civil war.
And at the end of the Civil War, there was all these soldiers
who every week were very good at milling or boxing.
And boxing never used to be glove fighting.
And it used to be bareknuckle that was boxing, you know,
these soldiers, when they came out, they had nothing to do.
And again, exactly the same as in the Elizabethan times
with Sir Francis Drake’s sailors
You know,
the country was at this time it was absolutely adrift
with ex soldiers,
you know, parliamentarian soldiers who milled.
So they, in this time,
it was different because there were so many them.
You got your champions and you started getting you know,
your super heroes and your really well known guys.
And before you knew it, you'd have newspapers writing about certain
bareknuckle fighters.
When I was younger, I always used to read about the old, bare knuckling days.
you know, back then and they’d fight for hours.
But they were men of honor.
You know what I mean, they were gentlemen.
And when they won,
They used to have a bit of cloth here
Your man would take the cloth away.
It were his, that was trophy in a way.
I think Bob Fitzsimmons comes into mind.
I think he had maybe about 106 fights
and knocked, I think half of them out.
he was someone I always read about and he were a
gentlemen do you know what I mean all them old type fighters were all gentlemen.
but they would fight for hours.
Yeah Andy Topliff, he was the first man to bring bare knuckle boxing back, publicly
since the late 1800s.
He put a lot more rules in it
Set it a lot more safer should we say.
A count to 20 If you get knocked down.
and he cared for the fighters, and he thought about the fighters.
He weren't there for the money.
He thrived on the sport like I did,
He was very educated on bare knuckle fighting
The new middleweight, UK champion, Dave Radford!
I first met Dave Radford
It's quite an interesting story actually.
I'd heard of Dave Radford through many, many years.
Basically, he’d become a bit of a legend to me, you know,
I wanted to fight him when I was younger, even though I didn't know the guy.
He was the only name I kept hearing.
You know, who the f*** is this Dave Radford, you know?
But the very first time I met him
It was Harry's bar, he come up the lift and
And as soon as I saw him, I saw these big high cheekbones, big smile on him
because he's got such a lovely smile and what a gentleman he is, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Hello my mate, you know, big hand shake, you know it was
it was a nice moment for me anyway.
and he said it was for him as well.
So when he fought James McCrory,
he was like, Andy you know, make sure you get me someone who’s
good because I never can find anyone you know, everyone I find
I can just, I can knock them out straight away.
I want a proper fight, you know?
All right, then I'll do as I can.
Now, Dave Radford’s always said, Andy, you're the one man
who's always got me beat!
He said, he said
any other time, he says, I'll win.
He says but you, is like me demon.
You know, we have a laugh, you know, because unfortunately,
every time he’s stood on my
my pit, he’s lost.
But that's not the case,
You know, don't get me wrong, Radford’s, he's one of the hardest men I know.
You know, he's a legend, as far as I'm concerned.
For bare knuckle, the man can take pain.
You know, I'm glad that I didn't fight him.
Quite frankly, because, my God, if he's like that, when he's his age,
God knows what he was like when when he was a young man.
You know what I mean...
He took McCrory on
I think, I think it was a bit of an eye opener for him when he lost
and it was actually, it actually was his eye
which did him because unfortunately
where McCrory was wearing wraps
you know, bust his eye
quite badly
that's actually when he
you know, it got called because his eye was that bad
and he just went. I remember, I felt so sorry for him
and he just put his arm, hand up
the guy and fortunately the guys who came down with him, they couldn't believe it.
You know, the guy had never been beat.
You know, it was a shocker to us all.
It was a shocker to me.
I was shocked. I felt, I felt for him.
But we had a new champion, James McCrory, you know, fair play, you know.
But then, Radford wanted it again
And my God, did he perform?
He didn’t get it, but thats life, but he's still the legend and he still
and this is how legends are made you know.
you don't have to win to be a legend yet
sometimes it's the, the guy that loses
maybe put a bit more heart in, you know
I mean, he
S***
The second fight he had with McCrory
Never seen a fight like it, never seen a fight like it.
Wow. What a fight.
If only I had a time machine.
Yeah, I know.
I know it were hard for you
I never, ever wanted you at my fights.
But you said it were harder being at home
because you know, your thinking as he fought yet as he
going in, is he being hurt and things like that, but,
when you came
I just said, well you can come in
I think, was it the last 3 fights you've been to?
Yeah
but you just didn’t want to see
I didn't want to see you in there.
I didn't want you to know you're in there.
And I said you keep out it way, but,
How were it for you, what did you
I preferred to be there.
I think it was really hard to sit at home just waiting for a phone call.
And if nobody rung.
Oh, is it because you've been hurt or?
Yeah, I found that very difficult.
I know the extreme that he’d go to, he will never give up in a fight.
And he's just a true warrior.
Me and Dave have been together ten years
this year.
I think a lot of people don't realise what a lovely kind man he is.
But also I think
people are pretty easy to judge
when you hear, Oh, you’re with a bare knuckler
and this and think oh you know, what sort of guy is he?
But he's the most gentle, loving man I've ever met.
and it's took me a long time to find a good man.
and he certainly is one.
This were back end of my career my last gym should I say.
Up here, in top of the Alpha.
Brilliant set up, I had
full boxing ring in there, full size
bags were there
and we ended up running a little amateur boxing club
from here, and there were a few lads in village that had a few fights.
which were good, but I did a
hell of a lot of training for my bare knuckle fights up here
with Craig Smith.
You know, my sparring with him, do you know what I mean so,
another place were I’ve shed a lot of blood up here as well. But
the best thing, best thing what ever happened for me,
was
I’ve had a few good people at this pub, do you know what I mean, I’ve had
Roy Jones Junior
Smokin’ Joe Frazier, I mean that’s unbelievable
One of my main men to come here was
Roberto Duran, he came here to open the gym for me, do you know what I mean
big Tim Witherspoon’s been in here
I’ve done a lot with Tim Witherspoon
It were nice, It were my dad’s birthday the other week
and Tim sent him a text message, happy birthday, Terry.
So that was, my dad was
really chuffed with that like, do you know what I mean.
Craig, how many times
We’ve been up here and had a decent session, you know
How many times have you busted my nose up here?
Well it's, it weren't
That was the problem with it, we did that many rounds and if your nose weren’t bust
You weren’t happy was you.
I know that, yeah
I had to break your nose or bust your nose or
knock your tooth out, otherwise you weren’t happy were you?
You don’t ever, have to pay for that either.
How much was it?
I’m sure it was £1200
I told ya!
I remember it, that when
you picked me up and you says
you know, I’ll meet you at 10:00am, picked me up
You picked me up.
I just had tooth fitted day before.
Anyway, goes down to the top of King’s head.
and I said, erm,
Oh, jeez, I forgot my shield.
I think I got one glove on, I says I forgot gumshield
He went, it's alright, we'll take it easy, we'll take it easy, I bet it wasn’t 60 seconds
His tooth was knocked out!
Tooth out!
It was!
It was fantastic as well for me
It was an honor for me to be in there with you mate
because I looked up to you, you were my hero
I followed you all the way through from being a baby and
And it was just nice for me to, learn.
And I did, I had to learn or
Otherwise it was hard work that.
Yeah but we come on together.
As I said, we did the sparring and that and then it got to the stage where
we could really have a good go each other.
Yeah, after you’d let me hit you for 3 years.
But I said, the thing is,
after so long
Id give you four or five rounds, then I’d say right,
You know, let's, let's go up a bit.
But we stepped it up and when we stepped it up then, we, you know, it was bang on.
And that's, how I've learned, and that’s how you’ve learned.
getting ready for fights and things like the bare knuckle,
you know, the bare knuckle fights,
I couldn’t have done it without you because just a phone call, you were there for a spar.
And that's when I needed that sparring
and you know, I’d fight at short notice and
Yeah! That 2 weeks notice
2 weeks notice!
then little did you know
as time went down I got the bug and all, so I got it as well.
You give me the bug, the disease.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It were good wasn’t it
Yeah, but we, erm,
Like I said, said we
nobody would know
like when we used to come up here, door would be locked because nobody would
nobody would come in
we would walk out of here absolutely smothered in blood and things like that.
And people think what's going off here, they did not know and it was just
you’re hungry for the medicine.
You know what I mean, and thats how it is
But we've had some good things and we've been we've been to,
you know, some good fights and watched good fights and you’ve seen me fight
And you ended up then being my corner man
Oh, dear.
And then, which were good.
The only thing I regret or were every time I got back to the corner
you’d smoother me with water
you need water, you need water, it’s good for your brain get some water
You didn’t even want to drink water did you?
I know
I never ever wanted to drink water, no.
Absolute legend this man.
Fought Roberto Duran back in the day.
But I’ve got to say, what a lovely, lovely bloke.
real gentleman.
The man himself there, James McCrory.
James carrying his belts in there.
Two guys who are now close, a hardened handshake, the hug.
Two good guys there.
Yeah when I fought James McCrory
I break this here, as well as this
but you already know at the time anyway
All I’m hearing is you shouting uppercut
because that was the only thing I could catch him with bang bang, with left hook.
and it was working
But everytime I was bringing that uppercut I was thinking
Arghhh, I’m thinking...
don’t through an uppercut, don’t through an uppercut.
and all I could hear was you shouting
Uppercut, left hook, uppercut!
But it’s so natural because
It’s natural for you to shout, you knew what I needed to do
and what I needed to do, but
Your hand was broke
But you forget about them things.
Oh, suffering Jesus bang, bang.
I kept thinking, don’t throw it again.
and you’re shouting, and George is shouting
you know, uppercut
Why did you throw the uppercut?!
And then we gets back to the corner
and then I'm talking away
and you’re sorting me out with the cuts or whatever and I’m
not, not
saying anything about my hand but you can see I look down at my hand and shake my hand
halfway through the fight, but
It’d gone and finished up I had to
put my hand up
you know, I’d just can’t
That was a war that...
We’ve had many a good time up here do you know what I mean.
It made me a man. You made me a man.
But you must have had it in you Craig.
You must have had it in you.
It’s same as myself, I’ve never
never been into fight game when I was younger and everything but
there’s something in a man to be able to do what I've done you know what I mean?
same with yourself, we’ve
did gruesome sessions, do you know what I mean, we’ve had.
They were bad, they were heavy sessions.
and there were a lot of blood spilt.
and there was big, big respect , big friends.
And you when you look up to somebody like I looked up to you,
It was a privilege for me to get in there with you.
Yeah, that’s magic that.
And share it mate, honest it was like my birthday!
Yeah, yeah.
You had time for me to start with.
Yeah, because you was helping me.
Yeah, but I know,
But then, it got to the stage where you got a bit of a fix!
That's what he were planning on all along, just getting his fix.
As usual getting hit, that’s all he’d like to do.
He’s not bothered about hitting anybody, he doesn’t want to hurt anybody.
He just likes getting hit!
Hungry for the medicine.
Roughly how many fights have you been to Dave I mean, bloody hell, you’ve been to
I’ve had 163 fights
So you must have been to hell of a lot because
you started with me and
You know, a long time back, how many fights have you been to?
I’ll tell you what right, I was averaging a few years ago, we was at 100 to
to 120 fights a season.
Jeez.
Like
and how many fights have
I've been to yours? I've been to every fight you've ever had.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, so it's a hell of a lot of fights, ain't it?
That's the thing.
and it's like anything else,
It's not that fight that does the damage so much
its the 163 fights you've had previous.
It all, fights
When you're fighting year in, year out, it catches up doesn’t it.
It does yeah. I’m you know, damaged me
I'm damaged in them ways my memories, memories terrible.
But nar, 163 fights
But you've got to account for as well all the sparring that I’ve done for them.
Oh, yeah.
Maybe 8 or 9 rounds a night sparring.
Yeah.
And that's without your professional fights ain’t it.
and that’s hell of a lot.
Like I say, It just all adds up
and it's a lot of punishment ain’t it.
Oh, definitely.
a lot of punishment you take over the years.
and it’s like I've always said
how good a man was five years ago can be totally different
five years later, it's like a running dog.
It can be fantastic. The bee's knees.
Five years later, it's a different thing altogether.
It's the same with a fighting man, ain’t it.
You've only got that set time and that's it, aint it.
You can stay too long in the fight game.
It’s same myself now
I always say, I do a little bit of training
what I do, but to me I've always said which is true, I've got a good 10 minutes in me
But you've always to have that,
always to have that, bit of training with you because
because if not my, my name now with this fighting
everybody wants to have a little go do you know what I mean and
You've done it there's nothing to prove whatsoever.
I told you this years ago and if you remember I kept telling you to retire.
didn't I, because you've fought some epic battles
proper hectic battles.
And out of all the fights I've seen and I've seen
some serious hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of fights.
You got to think
I went to my first bare knuckle fight when I was 11 years old.
Right.
And the most epic battle that stands out without a shadow of a doubt
when you and James Gypsy Boy McCrory fought at the F club.
That was one hell of a fight.
And I'm in company of a lot of fighting men.
And a lot of men say that was one hell of an epic battle.
When you pay for watching a fight,
That's a fight you want to watch, do you know what I mean?
Let's face it, it's 20 years now gone by.
We've been the closest of friends now 20 years, right?
September 2005, when I bought my man to fight you
Yeah, yeah.
And my man had beat so many men at the time.
Big lump of a man as well.
A big lump of a man.
And like I say with it, you nearly killed my man at the end.
Yeah, yeah.
He told me, he pulled up in the van
he said to me, ‘is he here Plattsy?’
I said, ‘he's here.’
He said, Dave, I'm going to kill him.
I’m gonna kill the b****** he says. Right, that was my man.
And he didn't care whether he killed you, took your life or what my man.
And then, like I say with it,
you fought it out
and you done my man didn’t you.
You have lived a proper sporting life.
You are the Napoleon of Southern sports
and it's been an honor to be a good friend to you.
Good man Dave.
See you again my lad.
Good luck, bye.
At the next sporting event.
Good man.
Yeah, I've retired now, erm, ish...
I’ve moved from
my job which was up north and moved from the job down to
Kent, so I’m working in Kent for a long time now.
So what I've done, I've got this place in Aylesbury
and it's a lovely place, lovely pad.
Yeah I miss, I miss the fighting game, I mean
but, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t go to any shows.
because I’ll still be jumping in, do you know what I mean, but,
I do miss it, hell of a lot.
But mainly now I’m concentrating on my work,
which I've always done. I keep saying I’ve retired.
There’s one or two people I’d like to fight who can give me that good fight.
But it's having that time off work.
It's not the money, you know, for the fighting and things.
But I just, I do miss it.
I do miss it.
The new middleweight, UK champion, Dave Radford!
Someone shouted me the other day, asking me to fight.
And the money what they offered me.
I get in a month anyway at work.
And so that doesn’t interests me.
And I don't fight for money.
I fight for the enjoyment, It sounds funny saying enjoyment.
I like to have a good old scrap
So that people will talk about that
If I knock him out first round
It’s over and done with
Nobody really talks about it.
But if you have a brutal, you know, good old scrap,
then it's talked about for a long time people will say, the second fight with
James McCrory, brilliant fight.
If I could fight again, I want the exactly the same fight as that
to happen.
and that's what makes me want to fight again still because
I think there’s another couple of fights left in me.
But it's having that time off work and things
I’m happy in a way with work
but I’m like that with the fighting game.
My plans now for future is,
you know, I've always been 100% with work so I'm going to be happy with work
I’ve a lot
hell of a lot to do with this place down here, we’ve
we've done inside.
And now there’s hell of a lot of work to do on the outside, on the land.
I've got some road chippings over there.
There's, there's only 60 tonnes.
So I won't take me long with the wheelbarrow.
Trouble is that might get you fit and you might want to come out of retirement.
But then we've
got erm, within next couple of years we are planning a wedding aren’t we
Yeah, yeah.
We just got get a date ready haven’t we.
A date.
and you've asked George already to be your best man.
George to be my best man, the screaming skull.
We did say we were just gonna have a quiet wedding, but,
you can’t have a quiet wedding when you have a family like mine.
I'm now going to ask you to think back to the very start of this biography,
to the question that was posed,
that being, who holds the power?
Is it the beast or is it the jailer?
However,
whoever holds the power to hold the key
that will grant the beast freedom
allowing it to rise, to manifest
for one of two reasons...
either in the defense of others,
or to meet a mutual challenge.
But be assured,
this does not signal the final act
or the last page turned.
There will be other chapters to come.
As with most things in life, there is often a caveat,
a disclaimer, and Dave Radford holds one himself.
One that is best said using his very own words.
Those words being.
Please don't take my kindness for a sign
of weakness