THE poster advertising a night of professional boxing at Nottingham Ice Rink on May 28, 1963, gave top billing to a British middleweight title contest between champion George Aldridge and challenger, Corkman Mick Leahy.
Down at the very bottom of the bill, it also mentioned the first personal appearance at a British fight by a young boxer from America, called Cassius Clay.
Leahy was still in the dressing-room warming up when the Rolls- Royce that had ferried Clay up from London arrived at the venue.
Recently turned 21, the future Muhammad Ali was already an Olympic gold medallist, and just nine months away from winning his first world heavyweight title.
The mere act of Clay walking into the venue and making his way to ringside caused so much havoc that an undercard bout between Doncaster’s Fred Powney and Leicester’s Joe Falcon almost ground to a temporary halt.
Everybody turned and stared, then rushed towards him. They had read about this fighter from Louisville, they had seen footage and heard the voice. Oh, they had heard the voice. But here he was in the flesh before them. A sight to behold.
“Who are these bums?” Clay demanded of the warm-up fight he’d interrupted. “I could lick them both.”
Hundreds swarmed towards him, seeking autographs. Irate stewards shouted for order and for Clay to sit down, but he ignored their pleas.
Then, when the ring girl came along brandishing the No.5 ahead of the fifth round, he grabbed the card from her, saying: “Hey, man, you can’t do that, that’s my round.” Since arriving in England, Clay had been boasting that he would end his forthcoming clash with Henry Cooper at Wembley in the fifth.
After Clay finally sat down, Leahy, wearing a green robe and green shorts, who was based in Coventry, and Aldridge, from Lesietershire, entered the ring.
Clay was brought up then to be formally introduced to the combatants and to the crowd. When spectators saw he was holding up the five card and bragging again about what he was going to do to England’s great heavyweight hope, he was booed and jeered and appeared to savour every second of the response.
“That’s just how I like it,” he said. “When I’m finished talking, even babies will turn up at Wembley to see me, and so would cats and dogs if they were civilised.”
Amid all the mayhem and theatrics, Leahy was getting ready for one of the most important fights of his life. At 28 years old, he’d been a pro for seven years, with a record of 42 wins, 12 losses, and seven draws. And no belt.
Having previously lost a shot at the British welterweight title when he was knocked out in the eighth by Brian Curvis in 1961, Leahy had worked hard for this latest opportunity. The boy who took up the sport in the Glen Boxing Club after the family moved from Paul Street up to Spangle Hill was a wily veteran of the ring.
For someone who spent two and a half years in the Irish Army before emigrating to Coventry on the Innisfallen, like so many others in the grim, sepia-tinted ’50s, Leahy still managed to piece together one of the most colourful résumés in Irish boxing history.
He fought everywhere, as befitting someone whose management (his corner team included Randolph Turpin) boasted of a ‘have gloves, will travel’ attitude.
Among the venues Leahy graced were Sydney Stadium, The Boston Garden, Madison Square Garden, Tolka Park, The King’s Hall, Gurranabraher Hall, Manchester Free Trade Hall (music fans may appreciate that venue’s significance more than boxing fans), and the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna.
He had taken out UK citizenship to be eligible to compete for a British belt. His change of nationality didn’t bother the 3,000 Irish fans, many fellow emigrants working in the car manufacturing hub of the English midlands, who had shoehorned into the ice rink that night 60 years ago.
Leahy gave them what they had come to see after Clay’s theatrics had ended. Right from the start of the contest, he set about the champion, Aldridge.
“Leahy was on him like a tiger and hammered him unmercifully to the head,” wrote Neville Fougler in the Guardian Journal. “Aldridge hung on grimly but as Leahy stepped back, he slipped to the floor and stayed there on his knees looking for instructions from his corner. He groped his way back on to rubbery legs that were almost out of his control as the count reached five, and went into a clinch. Leahy pushed him away and sent him reeling into the ropes on the far side of the ring with another sickening right to the head.
“Like a flash, he followed up again, right after right pounded home into the defenceless face of Aldridge as he reeled drunkenly against the ropes. Suddenly, his eyes went glazed and it was obvious that he just didn’t know where he was.” The referee stepped in, pulled Leahy away and led the broken, battered champion back to his corner.
“This was the signal for the stampede to the ring and it took a cordon of policemen to keep the delirious crowd at bay,” wrote Fougler of the frenzied Irish fans.
The police did their best to stem the tide, but a few managed to sneak past to congratulate their man, and the security couldn’t tamp down the impromptu singing that broke out around the arena.
Clay had slipped through the security cordon and into the ring too, determined to wring yet more publicity for his bout with Cooper, even trying to wrestle the microphone out of the hands of the MC.
The crowd weren’t having it, booing the future three-time heavyweight champ for what they perceived to be an attempt to steal the limelight from the Corkman in his moment of triumph.
“That wasn’t nice of them,” said Clay later. “Rude in fact. I was only telling them they were looking at the greatest fighter in the world. That’s what I am.”
And that night, Leahy was the best middleweight in Britain.
EPILOGUE
Clay was famously knocked down by Cooper in their fight on June 18, 1963, at Wembley - one of only four such occasions in his career - but he won in the fifth, as he had predicted.
Meanwhile, in 1964, Leahy went up against another legend of the ring - Sugar Ray Robinson - in Paisley, Scotland.
At 43, Robinson was considered past his best, but had the support of the Scottish crowd, and managed to trouble the much younger Leahy with his hand speed and volume of punches.
However, Leahy won the fight by decision after 10 rounds.
He died in 2010 and the Cork County Boxing Board’s Boxer of the Year trophy is named after him, while a plaque commemorating him was unveiled at Bishop Lucey Park in 2009
