BOXING OUSTS MUSIC

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6173, 15 March 1948, Page 2

BOXING OUSTS MUSIC

IN THE PUBLIC ESTEEM ROYAL ALBERT HALL Rolls Royces, Daimlers, Bentleys and other luxury cars filled the parking spaces near the Royal Albert Hall on the night of the Bos Murphy fight. You can always tell those evenings when boxing supplants music at the Royal Albert. Music-lovers are impecunious people—they arrive at the hall on foot or by bus, and the park-ing-lots behind the huge 8000-seat ampitheatre remain half empty. But when boxing leaves its North London home at Harringay arena and moves to the Royal Albert the parked cars—with far more than their fair proportion of super-luxury makes —fill all the lots, jam adjacent alleys and mews. The bout was disappointing to watch, and many of the 50 or 60 press correspondents representing all the world’s major agencies and newspapers, who sat uncomfortably jammed together in a shoulder-to-shoulder square right round the ring, felt badly let down. “Call that a championship fight?” remarked one disgusted American after the bout. “It was just a ‘lightweight’ boxing exhibition—and not a very good one at that.” The judgment was rather harsh, I felt, although admittedly the fight was dull to watch and there were no , heavy blows exchanged. Much more scientific boxing was witnessed in the welterweight bout, which preceded the championship fight, -but Murphy’s foot injury, sustained in the first round, probably had a lot to do with 'his uninteresting performance. At all events, I recall : seeing him do much better at contests in Auckland against contestants who ; had more to offer than Vince Hawkins. , During dull moments in the fight—- . and they were many—l amused my- [ self watching and listening to the j crowd who occupied the ringside ; seats. They were an amazing assembly—the Ministry of Labour’s “Spivs, * drones and butterflies” gathered toj gether in one unbelievable congregation. There was a lavish display of mink 3 and sable among the feminine 'seci tion, but its effect was sadly dimin- , ished by a vulgar and ostentatious 1 display of tasteless jewellery. The men, wearing expensive fur- ® collared overcoats, spread themselves nonchalantly over heavy red plush * chairs, .chain-smoked huge cigars, and ' loudly exchanged bets throughout e every fight—totally ignoring notices t which “strictly prohibited” gambling of all kinds. Few appeared to be of British origin. “ It was possible by listening to the J continuous betting to gain a most I accurate estimate of the progress of | any one fight. The betting at the start of the championship was six to four against Miurphy. By the end of the first round it was four to one against Murphy. But. by the end of the sixth round the odds were even. As it became more apparent that Murphy was drawing ahead on points t. bettors hurriedly placed side bets covering themselves against possible * losses. As soon as the gong sounded at the end of a round a dozen would be onn their feet at once shouting “I’ll offer six to four on Murphy,” or “Five - hundred on Murphy to win; taken!” “Tic-tac” men, such as you see on the racecourse, would jump up in the aisles and signal the* changing odds to bookmakers in the cii’cle and galleries. Agents would scurry round the ring to their principals, murmuring figures and odds, scribble on a card and rush off to place or take bets on the other side of the ring. When Murphy was proclaimed the new champion there were a lot of glum faces in the .ringside seats. A prematurely-bald young man sitting just behind me muttered to an agent who came hurrying up that the New Zealander had just cost him five thousand pounds. There were of course many genuine boxing enthusiasts in the hall, not interested in betting. But they were mostly in the cheaper seats and in the draughty promenade gallery, lost among the clouds of tobacco smoke eight storeys above the ring.—