BOXER TO M.P.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

BOXER TO M.P.

GULLY'S- FIRST FIGHT. AGE OF THE CORINTHIANS. A REMARKABLE CAREER. The English Oligarchy which stood up against the little Corsican was supremely confident in its ability tc stand up against the whole world, simply because it was composed exclusively of gentlemen and tlie whole world was composed exclusively of low fellows. Seldom, if ever, has n Society existed which was so supremely arrogant as tho Corinthians who flourished in the first half of tho lOtli century. They did everything in thcii lives with a gesture of magnificent contempt for public opinion, and upon tho grandest possible scale. If they gambled, they gambled in thousands and accepted victory or defeat with the sium impassive scorn. If they drank, they drank six or eight bottles a day. They lived hard, swore hard, and died hard. The Game Chicken. John Gully was a Bristol man and he was born in 1783. Attempting to revive his father's waning butcher business, he was landed in bankruptcy, and at the age of 20 he was rescued from the King's Bench prison by 110 less a celebrity than Henry Pearce, the Game Chicken, the Champion of England. This was tho crisis in Gully's life. lie was a keen and strong fighter, and the Game Chicken, who was vainly searching for I an opponent, decided that the young butcher was the man for him. No one else would venture into the ring against the Champion. The match took place at Hailsham, in Sussex. At first the odds were three to one on the Chicken, but by the time tho novice had landed two terrific hits upon Pearce's left eye in the 17th round the odds had shortened to six to four. In the end the Champion won, but it took him 59 rounds, and Gully sprang in a single day from obscurity to the admitted position oi second fighter in the country. What was even more important, he had acquired a sum of about £500. From tho very start of his independent career —Sifter butchery had been discarded— Gully showed himself a bold and skilfu financier. Ho greatly increased his capital by backing the Game Chicker against the mighty but too old Jem Belcher, and then by re-entering the ring and winning two fights againsl Gregson, and becoming champion. Only Three Matches. But Gully was too shrewd not to see that there was more money and fewei hard knocks outside the ropes thar inside, and those three matches,, th< defeat by Pearce and the victories ovei Gregson, were the stun total of his pugilistic exploits. (Gene Tunney ir our day fought more than 200 times.; How good was he? It is impossible t< tell. "He had great courage and a coo head; he was a moderately skilful koxei and a very hard hitter. His capacity h perhaps been best estimated by the fae that for two years after lie fought tin Chicken, no one came forward to ehal lenge him." After retiring from the ring, GIIII3 put in some lucrative work as a second a backer, and a better, but his eyes wen turning more and more to the racecourse Racing and prize fighting went to somi extent hand in hand; the same kind o gentlemen, the same kind of blackguards the same kind of noodles, were inter ested in both. Big fights were oftei arranged at the time of race meetings those who had been Gully's backers°it the prize ring were also backers of horses and there was far more money in horses From Backer to Bookmaker. He made a poor start, however, foi he went into the game as a backer aw not as a layer, and in ISIO he lost very heavily at Newmarket when Damn Dawson poisoned the horses on th< Heath and was duly hanged for hi! trouble. Gully learnt his lesson anc promptly turned bookmaker. It was e cut-throat business, being a bookmakei 111 1812, and morals and methods were as dirty as at any time in the history of British sport. For instance, then were the scoundrelly brothers Bland.' Nobody seems ever to have accuser them of being honest, and it was writtei of Jem in his lifetime that "he rarelv pays a bet if he can help it. The position he takes up is win, lie 01 wrangle." He could neither read noi write, he was a coarse, unkempt crea turo in an old green coat and top boots nobody trusted him, but he could raake a fortune and buy a fine house ir Piccadilly. Old Crocky Another contemporarv character was William Crockford, Old Crocky, "the leather of Hell and Hazard," who started life as a fishmonger and was ready tc swindle anyone respectably and with due decorum. Here was a dangerous company in which John Gully enrolled himself, and yet he had not many disadvantages and some advantages which the others had not. He was uneducated, but so were they; he had done something in the world and had been a national hero whom it was a privilege to shake by the hand ? n d they had only been convenient institutions, to be made use of, not tc be proud of. Gully prospered as a bookmaker and commission agent, and soon he launched out as a racehorse owner. From this moment the story of his career is the story of the Corinthians. Famous names in a wild world of sport are dotted about on every page. Colonel Hellish was "running his race to the devil with 38 horses in training, 17 carriage horses, 12 hunters in Leicestershire, four cavalry chargers at Brighton, a stablcfu] of riding hacks at Blythe, and everywhere regiments of retainers irt ckr"c of them." The Squire. Mr. Tattersall was conducting his auctions at the Salutation Inn, and George Payne of Sulby was tearing his way through a fortune of £300,000, and the great Squire Osbaldestone was accepting any and every challenge offered to him. The squire was a friend 01 Gully. He was a superb figure, this "bristling little man." Game shot, horseman, terrific fast-bowler, oarsman billiard player, he was an invincible hero. For instance, he bet that he would ride 200 miles on Newmarket Heath in under 10 hours (Gully lent him some racehorses for the match), and won with an hour and 18 minutes tc spare. Later 011 the two men quarrelled over a particularly unsavoury turf scandal, and Gully went for the' Squire with his fists and the Squire warded him off with a poker. At this time the turf was in a deplorable state of corruption. Pulling jockeys, faked starts, foul riding, poison, dope, disguised four-year-olds in the Derby, all these were ordinary occurrences, and it was not until the famous

Lord George Bentinck began his inexorable campaign for clean racing that some of the major evils were eradicated. Lord George had a passionate desire not to be cheated, and he devoted his life to seeing that he, and incidentally all other owners got a square deal on the racecourse. He even had the nerve to tell the Squire that he was an impudent robber on the occasion when the Squire flagrantly and confessedly pulled a horse at Heaton Park. Member for Pontefract. In all this welter of crookdom John Gully more than held his own. He made large sums of money, he won the Derby three times, and in 1832 he became Member of Parliament for Pontefract. "It was not surprising that he was asked to stand for lie was now a local country gentleman, John Gully, Esquire, of Ackworth Park, and a popular figure in a county where the day of tho St. Lcgcr was the greatest day of the year." And in 1836 lie was "presented by Lord Morpeth at the levee and was actually at the Queen's drawing-room on the following day." Tho ex-pug was still rising in the world. Ilis last triumph was the victory of his horse Andover in the Derby. He was now over 70, an old gentleman strong and venerable, with snow-white hair and a not unkindly face, though liis mouth could still set in a hard line and his eyebrows had a menacing air, Old suspicions were no longer whispered, old animosities had died out; he had become that which English p.cople always regard kindly, an institution; he was almost the Father of the Turf. JTe died at the age of 79. John Gully, Champion of England, was a tough character in a tough age. He asked no favours of any man, nor would he knuckle down to any man. He fought fair against a fair opponent, and foul against a foul one, and he held his own in the centre of the crookedest, most dissolute, most rascally crew who ever dabbled in the twin pastimes of the prize ringand the racecourse. His earliest friend the fiaine Chicken, wrote his beet epitaph: "Ho must be a sharp chap and get up early in the morning as beats John Gully."—John O' London's Weekly.