The dream was over but the reality remains
By Clayton Goodwin
We needed a super-hero
Well I remember the Randolph Turpin v Sugar Ray Robinson fight for the middleweight championship of the world on 14th July 1951 at the Earl’s Court Arena in London – though I was only 8 years old and the country was still coming out of the long-drawn aftermath of the Second World War. Every-one I knew talked about it. The fight was the first big individual sports event I can recall. Yes, I had been enthralled by the cricket tours of Don Bradman’s Invincibles in 1948 and the West Indies of the three Ws (Worrell, Weekes and Walcott) two years later – but that was cricket, cricket was special, and this was merely sport. Or was it? “Our Randy against the Yank” – with its pantomime hero and villain – was more like a medieval religious mystery play. And somehow it seemed it would reflect on the nature of our own lives and society just as that summer’s Festival of Britain sought to boost the national confidence.
The country needed some cheering-up. Current affairs played out to the depressing backdrop of the Korean War, the defection of spies Guy Burgess and Don McLean, tightening international tensions, and, of course, rationing. Just a few weeks before the fight there had been the Easington colliery disaster with multiple fatalities and in the very days leading up to the contest Christine Butcher, a 7 year-old schoolgirl, had been murdered in the vicinity of Robinson’s training-camp and poignantly, it was said, as she was on her way to show her doll to the legendary boxer. Her killer has never been found. It was a tragic time for young girls multi-murderer John Straffen had escaped from prison to kill again. We needed the re-assurance of our own Dan Dare, the super-hero “pilot of the future” who graced the pages of the Eagle comic, rather than of a Goon Show which had just started broadcasting on radio.
The young man had an impressive boxing pedigree
Turpin, still only 23 years old, had a whole mountain to climb if he was to over-turn the odds against him. In those days Americans were expected to win everything. Dick Savitt and Doris Hart had just completed a double of the Wimbledon lawn-tennis singles titles. As for boxing – when was the last time a Briton had really beaten an American when it mattered. Well, Freddie Mills had done so, but he was a one-off and had lost the title – to another American – in his first defence. Nevertheless, Nickel Coin had just shown that horses, at least, could do exceptional things by winning the Grand National when only three horses finished. How could that stack up against the 30 year-old Robinson’s record of only one loss in 133 contests – and that he had avenged. Now the great man was coming off a European run of six consecutive victories inside seven weeks, the most recent of which, a stoppage of Cyrille Dellanoit, had happened only nine days earlier. The champion was nothing less than a victory machine.
Much has been written, and said, about Turpin’s modesty. How he travelled to and from the venue at the Earl’s Court Arena in London by public transport. He came from a humble background in Leamington Spa, West Midlands. It may have been Royal Leamington Spa, but that counted little for the lower orders who were finding it difficult just to get by. His mother Beatrice struggled to bring up the family after his father Lionel had passed away prematurely from the effects of war wounds sustained in his service in the First World War. Yet the young man had an impressive boxing pedigree. Randolph had had an exemplary amateur career, had suffered only two professional defeats, and his brother Dick had been the first non-white boxer – I shall come to that later – to be allowed to contest, and win, a British national title. If Britain needed a hero to represent our much-desired phoenix-like rise from the ashes of war then Randolph Adolphus Turpin (“Our Randy”) was that man.
Robinson represented everything our society resented
On the other hand, the extrovert Robinson represented everything that our post-war society resented about the Americans. He was too damned “flash”. The former Walker Smith (which was his name before he donned his nom de boxe) symbolised the good-time Yankee GI’s who had seduced the affections of our women, some of them, during the war-years by being … over paid, over sexed, and over here (as the saying went). Every blow that Turpin landed on the nostrils of “the Yank” would be retribution for our offended manhood. Before Randy could hit Robinson, however, he had to catch him, and if he did …. If he did … Ray’s fabled entourage, the pink Cadillac and his personal hairdresser would not be able to save him. If, very quickly, almost became when.
The challenger was unfazed by his opponent’s reputation. He used his advantage in weight to off-set the champion’s superior speed and skill. Robinson may have been fatigued by his congested programme of engagements, and maybe a little blasé after his recent successes – sure that he would add another European hopeful to his basket of triumphs. It didn’t help that he suffered a cut to his eye early in the fight. After that, it was all up-hill for the title-holder. When he crouched Turpin crouched, when he stood to full height, Turpin did the same. And if the 18,000 spectators couldn’t really believe their eyes, the listening audience were even more perplexed.
“Our Randy” was – coloured, and nobody was more heroic
The commentary team of the excitable, ubiquitous Raymond Glendenning (of the prominent moustache and formidable glasses)and inter-round summariser, and former referee the more placid W. Barrington Dalby (“Over to you Barry”), could not comprehend what they were seeing and called the fight for Robinson – as if the greatest fighter of his – or any – age just couldn’t lose. When referee Eugene Henderson raised Turpin’s hand at the end of the 15th round there was initial incredulity before the reality of the up-set got through. Film, and the testimony of those present, confirmed that the margin hadn’t even been close. The following day, in the age before mass television coverage and press pictures had been scarce, I was surprised to learn that Turpin, like the American, was “coloured”, as they said then, and nobody had given it a second thought. Whatever his ethnicity, he was “Our Randy” and he had done us proud.
As Mario Lanza sang in one of the biggest hits of the time It was the loveliest night of the year it ushered in a month of magic and beauty. Just a few days later the first Miss World contest was held (won by Kiki Hakensson of Sweden) and 37 year-old veteran Jersey Joe Walcott knocked out Ezzard Charles in the 7th round to win the world heavyweight championship – at his fifth attempt. Later on in October an even older warrior, Winston Churchill, came back from two previous defeats to win the General Election.
The Empire Windrush had sailed into Tilbury Dock just three years earlier – an event which is celebrated today as being the symbolic starting point of Caribbean immigration into the United Kingdom. At the time it mattered little and was hardly recognised. Randolph Turpin, the son of a Guyanese father and English mother, had shown that British heroes – and nobody was more heroic (or more British) that summer – could come in all shades of colour. The very point Trinidad-born sprinter Emmanuel McDonald, the future Olympic gold-medallist, was showing already on the athletics track and his compatriot, Winifred Atwell, too, was already knocking out a tasty and popular tune or two on “my other piano”.
Too good to last
It was too good to last, and it didn’t. The contracted return match took place before a 61,370 crowd at the Polo Grounds, New York, on 12 September 1951. It, too, was a fight to remember. This time Robinson started with greater aggression and forced the pace. Yet Turpin was still a match for him. By the end of the ninth round the American was bleeding so much from the eyes that referee Ruby Goldstein allowed him to continue for only one more round, and if there was no improvement in his condition he would stop the fight. Ray went all out for the knockout, but the Briton stood his ground. Then in the closing seconds Turpin was caught by a powerful right-hand punch and knocked down. When his opponent groggily regained his footing at the count of 7, Robinson unleashed a whirlwind of punches, and the Briton, trapped against the ropes, could not respond. Mindful of a recent much-publicised ring fatality the referee stopped the fight … with just 6 seconds of the round remaining. Six seconds to safety …. All could agree with My Heart Cries For You by Guy Mitchell, another big hit of the year.
When our bread delivery-man brought the news to us the next morning we, like the rest of the country, were sure “those damned Yankees” had called off the fight too early to save their man. One more round and Turpin would have won. Years later I bought the video of the contest to prove to myself that “our Randy had been robbed” – I still have it here – but, alas, the referee had been right. The one-way traffic in punches could not have been allowed to go on. The dream was over, but the reality remains. From one night in July 1951, the spirits of the British nation had been lifted. Probably not since the evacuation at Dunkirk, our confidence had been restored when it was at its lowest.
I don’t know what “our Randy did to the Yank” achieved for international boxing, but it did a great deal for our self-esteem. The next day we could go to school with our heads held high and a spring in our step – even though we personally didn’t know any Yanks to impress.
(Then came the denouement of the slide in Turpin’s career, bankruptcy, pity, and suicide. No – please – stop the story there. We don’t want you to spoil the dream).