Hard Road to Glory - How I Became Champion of the World. Johnny Nelson
through their paces, hitting the bags that hung from the girders, shadow boxing, skipping, lifting weights or performing some strange ritual along blue lines painted on the floor. There was a strong smell of sweat and leather, and the room vibrated to loud music from a ghetto blaster. I noticed a sign on the wall that read, ‘Boxing can damage your health.’
As I tried to take all this in, I heard a soft Irish voice call out to me, ‘Come here, lad. What do you want?’ It was Brendan. He was small, a little hunched, but there was something about him that clearly marked him out as the centre of this apparent chaos. Maybe it was because he was quiet and calm. I told him I wanted to learn to box. Brendan nodded and said, ‘OK. Tonight you just stand there and watch and see what the others do.’
I spotted Herol among the people sparring in the ring. He was king of the gym at the time and undoubtedly one of the finest boxers this country ever produced. Nearby was Brian Anderson, who was also to become British middleweight champion. But the guy who caught my eye was Vinny Vahey, a little Irishman who was really quick on his feet and had lightning-fast hands. Vinny’s boxing career never amounted to much but that night he mesmerised me and straight away I decided I wanted to be like him.
Allan had told me Brendan would test me out to see how keen I was and warned me that, if I didn’t buckle down and do the boring stuff, I would soon find myself booted out. It wasn’t a problem for me. I wasn’t keen to get in and box anyway, so the fitness side of things was great. I was soon introduced to those three blue lines painted down the length of the gym about two feet apart.
‘Doing the lines’ was one of Brendan’s inventions. You had to shadow box your way down in a series of moves, making sure your feet always landed smack on the line. Over the years I must have been up and down those lines several thousand times and they not only helped me develop a great inner rhythm and quick feet, but also improved my concentration beyond belief. It’s so simple but so effective. I’ve seen kids with no co-ordination start off hardly able to hit the lines with two steps in succession but after a while they were cruising and throwing in some moves of their own. Brendan has used the lines to help cure stutters and facial ticks. Even now I’ve retired, I still go back and work my way up and down from time to time. It still calms me and helps me concentrate.
Along with the benefits of doing the lines, Brendan used that simple routine to test our willingness to work. Several kids quickly got bored with just going up and down and drifted off to punch at the bags, but Brendan always noticed, called them back and reminded them that the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
I enjoyed the atmosphere of the gym and being around a group of people who didn’t give a damn where you came from. I must have done my lines to Brendan’s satisfaction because, pretty soon, he decided I could spar. I was tall and looked quite strong so, after some sessions with beginners, he threw me in with his good fighters, including Herol and Brian. It was hell. There would be four people in the ring at once and every minute Brendan shouted ‘change’ and you moved round, so you sparred with each one of the other three every round.
Brendan had been a boxer and knew how it felt to leave training with a cut lip or black eye and with his head aching, so he only allowed sparring to the body. It could still hurt like hell. Herol would beat me up, whipping in vicious shots while laughing all the time and taunting me with things like, ‘You tosser, you’re hopeless. C’mon, hit me.’ Then Brendan would call ‘Change!’ and Brian Anderson would start on me. I was being knocked all over the place and could hardly land a glove on them in return. I was hurt and frustrated. I didn’t let them know but, by the time I got on the bus to go home, I would be quietly sobbing. It never occurred to me to quit. I’d sit there planning for the day when I would get better and stronger and be able to gain my revenge.
Allan realised what was going on but told me he couldn’t do anything about it. He said, ‘If they know you’re my kid brother, they’ll just hit on you more.’ His words proved prophetic.
Allan and I kept our relationship secret for two years. We didn’t look alike so no one even suspected and it might have gone on longer if I’d not been such an airhead. He was due to fight and the local paper had agreed to come round to our house to take a photo of him with Brendan and a new sponsor. He warned me to be out of the house but I forgot all about it and was sitting in my underpants watching TV when I heard Mum open the door and say, ‘Hello, Brendan, come in.’ I knew I was in the shit.
‘What are you doing here?’ Brendan asked, clearly surprised to see me.
‘I live here,’ I said lamely.
Just then, Allan came in. It was a good job the others were there because he clearly wanted to beat the crap out of me. Brendan just smiled, shook his head and said, ‘I don’t believe it.’
The next night at the gym, he called me into the ring and shouted everyone else to gather round. ‘This is a very clever lad,’ he said. ‘He’s been coming here for two years and none of you ever knew that he is Allan Douglas’s brother. I didn’t even know until last night. You have to be crafty to get one past me and this kid is crafty. That’s what you need if you are going to be a decent boxer.’
I felt ten feet tall. No one had ever picked me out for such praise before and, while I knew Allan was still mad at me, I was proud Brendan had singled me out as someone special. The good feeling didn’t last long because, just as Allan had predicted, Herol and Brian decided to beat me up even more. It was hard to tell which of them was worse. Brian was powerful and when he hit you it was like being clubbed but at least you had some chance of hitting him back, even if he did shrug off the punches as though they were mere gnat bites. Herol was slippery and would dance around you, tormenting you with stinging jabs and sharp words, and, after he’d wound you up to his satisfaction, he would slip inside and catch you with a really great shot. Looking back, I can see how those sessions helped me develop but it was hard to appreciate this was for my own good at the time, especially as I was only progressing from garbage to plain bad. I might be crafty but being a decent boxer seemed a long way off.
I must have been seen crying on the bus one night because Brendan called me over and asked me what was wrong. I told him I was getting beaten up every day and didn’t know what to do about it. Most trainers would have just told me not be soft and to get on with it, especially if it was their top earner who was doing the beating up, but Brendan is a different class.
‘Start doing the weights and building yourself up,’ he said. ‘People will tell you that you shouldn’t be doing it, that it will slow you down, that you’ll become muscle-bound like Frank Bruno, but you just ignore them. Don’t tell anyone I told you. Just start working on the weights and see what happens.’
I did as he told me. Every day, I spent some time going through a routine with the weights and after a while I could feel the difference. I started to bulk up a bit and got stronger. I was still a crap boxer and my punches weren’t especially powerful, but at least, when I was sparring, I could hold on a bit more and my opponents didn’t find it quite so easy to hit and hurt me.
One day, Herol said, ‘You want to stop doing those weights – they’ll only slow you up.’
I was chuffed to bits. Brendan had been right. That night, I told him what Herol had said. He smiled. ‘That means it’s working. He’s finding you harder to handle. Just keep doing the weights,’ he said.
The first person I became really friendly with at the gym was Mark Willie, who joined just after me. He was one of the guys who never boxed but he was super fit and over the years he and I would train together all the time. We first met at the Columbus youth club. I’d heard some of the other kids in the road talk about hanging out there and decided it might be somewhere else I could make new friends. It took me a while to find the place but I eventually went in and Mark and I clicked straight