Bobby Arthur
THE years have done little to ease the memory of bad decisions that haunt Bobby Arthur.
In his dotage, the former British welterweight champ still bristles over away-day verdicts he describes - in sentences littered with expletives - as highway robberies.
The officials who administered those decisions are the subject of equally salty prose.
Time has not soothed the beast within the former Coventry box-fighter who hung-up his gloves in 1976 with a record of 26 wins, 15 losses.
That CV was compiled against the very best in Britain and Europe.
And Bobby, now 75 and still living in Coventry, was prepared to travel for a payday, fighting abroad eight times - twice in South Africa.
“If I had my time again,” shrugged the no-nonsense ex champ, “I probably wouldn’t have drunk as much. But it didn’t really matter. You always trained hard and took it off you.”
Recent years have not been kind to Bobby. In the space of 12 months, he lost his wife of 52 years, Teresa, his 47-year-old youngest son and his mother.
He is currently battling lung cancer with the same fortitude he showed in the ring. “I hope to beat it,” he said. “I’ve finished my last treatment.”
Bobby Arthur is hewn from an era when boxers with talent were matched tough early.
Fans of a certain age remember Bobby - a upright stylist with a decent sting in either fist - for one opponent. John H Stracey.
On October 31, 1972, he stunned the boxing world - albeit controversially - by beating the future superstar for the vacant British title.
That Albert Hall bout came to a bitter conclusion in the seventh when East Ender Stracey - a man who would go on to win the world title - was slung out in the seventh for hitting on the break.
“He hit me low,” said Bobby in a curt explanation.
Stracey’s backers were keen to erase the stain on his record asap - and the press made much of bad-blood between the pair.
The chance for revenge came in June of the following year - and John H grabbed it with both hands, dropping Bobby for the full count with a peach of a right hand in the fourth. Footage of that contest has been resurrected on youtube.
“I was offered £9,000 for a return with Stracey in December, 1972, but couldn’t take it because I’d broken my nose, I had to turn it down.
“I ended up fighting him the following summer for £4,500.”
Close to 50 years ago, that was still a very lucrative sum for a British title defence. It shows how desperate Stracey’s people were to set the record straight.
Bobby blames the defeat on ring rust.
“He’d had five fights between the first and second fights, I’d had none. Getting fights was always difficult because I wasn’t part of the syndicate (the promotional alliance of Mickey Duff, Mike Barrett and Jarvis Astaire). I was on the outside looking in. I think I could’ve achieved more with the right connections. I got caught with a shot I would never been caught with normally.
“There was never really any needle between me and John. We soon became pals later on through the golf and I’ve been up to John’s many times.”
To dismiss Bobby as a one-time Stracey opponent who got lucky gives great disservice to a fine career.
He was an outstanding amateur for Coventry Irish ABC, winning two national schoolboy titles, two junior titles and reaching the semi-finals of the seniors where illness forced him to pull out.
For his country, Bobby struck silver in the 1966 Kingston, Jamaica, Commonwealth Games. Ghanaian Eddie Blay beat him in the welterweight final.
He turned pro with Bert McCarthy the following year - and established himself as a title threat by peeling off 14 straight wins.
That run - in an era when it was far more difficult to construct a long unbeaten record - included two eight round epics with big punching Jackie Turpin Jnr.
Bobby, the first man to beat Turpin who was tipped for the top, won both by razor-thin margins: three-quarters of a point and a quarter of a point on the old scoring system.
Not surprisingly, Bobby believes he won both beyond doubt, but conceded: “He was one of my toughest opponents - the first man to put me down. That was in our first fight. Mind you, I put him down four times.”
Former lightweight champ Maurice Cullen - “nice guy, Maurice” - put the first “l” on Bobby’s record, winning by half a point in Solihull.
Two more distance losses followed in quick succession to Angel Robinson Garcia in Spain and future European titleholder Joergen Hansen in Denmark.
“I beat Hansen, beat him easily,” Bobby protested, “and got robbed.”
The phrase “robbery, it was a joke” runs like a thread in any interview with the former champ. In many cases - certainly some of the overseas assignments - he has a point.
Of his three fight series with gritty Yorkshire contender Les Pearson - all points affairs, with Bobby losing two by a quarter and half point margins, he said: “I never lost, I was robbed, it was a joke. And the referee in the last fight was a joke. I should’ve refused to fight if I knew he was in the ring.”
Bobby won the one that mattered against Pearson - a 12 round British title eliminator in Solihull. Just a quarter of a point separated the pair at the finish.
Les probably had his own tale of perceived injustice. There was very little daylight between the two.
Of the two round KO loss to thunderous punching Scot Tom Imrie, Bobby said: “I was 10st 8lbs, he was 11st 2lbs. I was a welterweight, he was a light-middleweight. It was ridiculous.”
Of the eighth round, cut eye loss to Jim Devanney at Digbeth Civic Hall, he fumed: “I was winning, got nicked and it was stopped.”
Age and illness has evidently not dampened Bobby’s competitive spirit.
The emphatic Stracey loss did not draw the curtain on the Coventry contender’s British title ambitions.
On September 25, 1973, at Wolverhampton Civic Hall, Bobby made a slice of boxing history.
He and Larry Paul were matched in the first ever British light-middleweight (11st) title fight. Paul took the Lonsdale Belt at the new weight with a 10th round KO.
“That was the only fight I didn’t do my roadwork properly,” Bobby insisted. “I ran out of steam. He wasn’t in my league, I made him look a p***k for most of the fight, then got caught by a silly shot. If I’d trained properly I would’ve won easily.”
Bobby decided enough was enough after suffering first round defeat to Alois Carmeliet in Belgium.
“I was 30, I was working as a plasterer,” he explained. “I plastered for 40 years and was plastering when I was 70. My last job was three bedrooms.
“I don’t bother with the game now. I had 20 years in the game, I’d had enough.”
To an extent, ring historians have declared Bobby a forgotten champ. He deserves much, much better.
He fought the best, often in their own backyard, and pulled the rug under the feet of many prospects.
The victories on foreign soil speak for themselves. Osmo Kanerva was outpointed in Helsinki, Stoffel Steyn in Durban. Bobby Arthur should be remembered as a very tough man in a very tough era.