A life of triumph and tragedy
Exclusive Barry McGuigan interview:
‘I got hassle in Ireland once. I told all six of them I’d smash their faces in’ ‘They carried the lad out the ring and could not revive him’
IT WAS not only QPR’s Loftus Road stadium which was ablaze with excitement that hallowed summer night 35 years ago when Barry McGuigan won the world featherweight title with his epic victory over the great Eusebio Pedroza.
Back in Clones, as the celebrations raged on into the small hours, the McGuigan family home caught fire and Barry’s mother Kate had to be rescued from the inferno.
‘It was her fault,’ McGuigan, 59, recalls with a chuckle. ‘My mother always lit candles on my fight nights. This time she helped me win my title but burned the house down.
‘She and aunt Brid and my sister were the only ones of the family who hadn’t come over to London. Mum was so thrilled about me winning and thankful I hadn’t been hurt that she forgot to snuff out the candles when they went to bed at gone three in the morning.
‘Thanks be to God my auntie woke and smelled the smoke and got the others up. The back of the house was in flames so they went to the front. Dad had just fitted double glazing and they didn’t open enough for them to get out.’
The McGuigan chortle becomes a gale of laughter as he tells what happened next: ‘A good friend of mine came along the road from the pub where a lot of the lads had watched the fight. Brid hammered on the glass and called out: “We’re on fire here”.
‘My pal shouted back, “To be sure, love, we’re all on fire tonight”. He tottered happily on down the street. Luckily a Garda called the fire brigade who got them out.’
West London was still a boozy sea of green that Sunday morning as Barry, his wife Sandra, father Pat and the rest of the McGuigan clan woke to news that the threestorey Victorian house in which they all lived was pretty much a smouldering ruin. They hot-footed it back to be greeted by tumultuous scenes.
‘After landing at Belfast airport we set off for City Hall,’ says McGuigan. ‘There were 75,000 people in Royal Avenue. It looked like those films of the end of the Second World War. Incredible.’
Then the fighting man known as the Clones Cyclone drove to his home town, population 2,000.
‘There were 30,000 in the streets,’ he says. ‘Amazing. Two days later it was on to Dublin. Between 300,000 and 400,000 people turned out. Unbelievable. That really brought home to me what I had come to mean to Ireland, north and south.’
Finbar Patrick McGuigan’s journey to those giddy heights had demanded even more courage than the bravery he always demonstrated in the ring.
He resisted the pressure to take sides in The Troubles. This Catholic boy fell in love with and married the Protestant girl across the road, his darling Sandra, amid all the killings. He was boxing as an amateur for both Ulster, by qualification of his father’s roots in the north, and for Leinster by his Irish birth. He took a public stand for peace over sectarian strife.
‘It was a terrible time,’ says McGuigan. ‘It was desperate.
‘Everywhere you went the colours were flying. The graffiti on all the walls said either King Billy (after William III the Protestant Orange Prince) or Up The Provos. I was sick of it. I refused to get involved.
‘I was boxing for the whole of Ireland and fighting for peace but the RA (IRA) were no fans of mine because in their minds I was not backing the Republican cause. Nor were the guys of the UDA (the Ulster Defence Association).
‘In the middle of this I had to apply for British citizenship because I wanted to fight for the British title. So another sign went up on the walls of West Belfast: Barry The Brit. Not that I gave two hoots — twisted, embittered people, nutcases. But I have to say only once did they give me any direct hassle.
‘I was driving in a deeply partisan area of Ulster. I had to stop at a T-junction and there were half a dozen guys standing on the corner.
‘It was a warm day and the car windows were open. As I started to move off one of them shouted, “You f ****** Taig”. That’s a very insulting term for a Catholic.
‘Sandra and our son Blain were in the car. I reversed and slammed on the brakes. Sandra said no, don’t. But I got out, walked straight up to them and asked who’d said it. Silence. I asked again. Silence.
‘I told all six of them they were cowards. That if I knew who said it
I would smash his face in. Silence. I got back in the car and drove off. That was the first and only time.’
A more sinister, indirect threat was to come at the time of the Pedroza fight, at the peak of his fame as both an outstanding world champion and ambassador for a solution to the conflict.
‘The security forces told me I was on the red list on both sides of the border,’ says McGuigan. ‘I was always travelling between north and south. I was high on the list for being kidnapped.
‘Judges were being kidnapped and held to ransom. Some of them killed. Then Shergar was taken.’
The wonder horse, winner of the Epsom and Irish Derbies, was stolen by armed terrorists in 1983 and never seen again. It is believed he broke a leg in the struggle and was then shot and buried.
‘There was a clear risk and serious concern,’ says McGuigan. ‘Two pairs of officers, one from the north, one from the south, were assigned to protect me round the clock. They were tooled up and I was issued with a gun. They taught me how to shoot. The only problem was I couldn’t hit a barn door. I was much more dangerous with my fists. It was a scary time.’
Barney Eastwood, an Irish bookie, had become McGuigan’s promoter when he turned professional. That relationship was a dynamic force all the way to the world title but ended in an acrimonious legal dispute.
Now a promoter himself for boxers trained by his son Shane, Barry chooses his words about that costly issue with diplomacy and without rancour: ‘Yes, we had a bit of a feud at the end. But Barney died this March and I never speak ill of the dead. I’m old-fashioned like that.
‘He was a terrific guy in many ways. A big personality. A great showman. We had a phenomenal run together and he was completely behind me in staying apolitical. We agreed I would box with the UN flag of peace on my shorts. The white dove on pale blue. If we had aligned with one colour or the other many in the crowds would have been threatened.
‘We had incredible support from both sides. They travelled all over to watch the fights. We had fan clubs in Belfast from the Shankill Road and Falls Road. Amazingly the respect held.’
The build-up to the Pedroza fight had been a turbulent affair. The 32-year-old Panamanian would not consider bringing his title to Belfast’s King’s Hall, where the boiling atmosphere had famously overwhelmed so many of McGuigan’s opponents.
The pride of all Ireland was more concerned by the change of climate at Loftus Road: ‘It would be a mild night there but I was used to being enveloped by the fetid heat generated in the King’s Hall by the fans and to the roof which held in all the noise. Now the biggest fight of my life would be outdoors.’
Eastwood came up with the solution. ‘He built a ring in his back garden,’ says McGuigan. ‘Then he or ganised two 15-round spars to get me accustomed to the open air and the cool breeze.’
The second of those proved to be his last sparring session: ‘I reached up to throw a left hook at a bigger guy and strained a tendon in my left elbow. I couldn’t spar again so I spent the last days cutting weight in my hotel room.
‘There’s always a lot of talk about boxers losing poundage before a fight but I believe that unless you struggle to make weight then you’re in the wrong division.’
Eastwood suspected Pedroza might be over the featherweight limit and demanded to see him take to the scales that Saturday morning. He and McGuigan, who should have been first to weigh-in as the challenger, were blocked at
‘I will never get used to my daughter not being with us’
the front door of the Odeon Leicester Square by 3,000 Irish fans.
The WBA’s Venezuelan supervisor saw the arm of the scale swing to and fro over the 126lb mark and pronounced Pedroza exactly on the limit. Eastwood went crazy, whipping up the crowd.
McGuigan, who came in four ounces under, says: ‘Eusebio was bang on weight but the fans got wild. After the shenanigans we found a chapel off the Edgware Road to pray and calm down.
‘We went to the stadium as late as possible because we knew it would be a madhouse. The guys had been drinking all day.
‘ABC television had the rights to my fights in the US and were demanding I walk down 40 yards of one touchline and then diagonally to the ring. Impossible. The fans climbed all over me and the police had their helmets knocked off.
‘It took me 12 minutes to reach the ring. Pedroza thought I was deliberately making him wait and hurried in seconds behind me.’
If McGuigan was under any illusions about the quality of the man he faced they were dispelled when he received a message from Larry Holmes.
The complete American heavyweight shared with Pedroza the record of 19 consecutive successful world-title defences. ‘Barry. Don’t let him go one better than me,’ read the telegram. McGuigan says: ‘Pedroza was world champion when I turned pro seven and a half years earlier. I knew he was by far the most skilful but I also knew I had the physical strength, stamina and punching power to beat any featherweight.
‘And I had all Ireland with me. I knew that to win a world title in that atmosphere and those circumstances would be incredible. But he started the fight as I knew him to be, one of the greatest featherweights in history. So clever, using his height and reach to whip uppercuts to the stomach and body shots round my elbows.
‘He was also excellent in close and firing shots which landed or whistled a centimetre past your chin. I knew I was behind after six rounds. But I also knew I had the strength, power and work rate to get to him soon.
‘Sure enough the seventh round proved pivotal. I caught him, dropped him for a count. Hurt him.
‘I had him going in the ninth. In the 13th I hurt him badly. I was unloading and knew the referee would stop him unless he fired something back. Well, as I was looking at Stanley Christodoulou to step in Pedroza threw something back all right. A huge shot on the chops.
‘I shook my head and said OK. I’m not getting rid of you. You’re too stubborn and too tough. So I thought don’t get caught in the last two rounds. Slip his punches and pick him off. I felt I was finishing off a great performance.’
So did we all. The verdict was unanimous, jubilation, deafening. McGuigan was in tears. At that moment he remembered the Nigerian, Young Ali, he had killed in the ring three years before.
Legendary TV commentator Harry Carpenter asked him how it felt to be world champion.
McGuigan says: ‘I was spluttering and blubbering but Harry realised I was dedicating my victory to that lad Young Ali.
‘I’ve always remembered that bad night like it was yesterday.
‘It was a black-tie dinner show at the Grosvenor House. Whenever I go back for events there it gives me the shivers. It was a stale atmosphere because no cheering was allowed. All you heard was the tinkling of glasses. I didn’t like it.
‘I had the kid in trouble in the third. Then I dropped him heavily in the sixth and he stayed down.
‘As I turned back from my corner to see how he was Barney pulled me away. I knew the boy must be in a bad way. They couldn’t revive him. It was nasty. There were no oxygen masks. Not even a stretcher so they carried him away on a tablecloth.
‘No ambulance on standby. When one came it took him to the wrong hospital first. Not that it might have made any real difference.
‘He had a very bad brain bleed and would never have come out of the coma. It seemed like good news when they took him home to Africa, but he died there five months after the fight. They switched off the machines. I tried to make contact with his wife and child but nothing came back.
‘Boxing is supposed to be a sport. I genuinely thought about packing it in. But then I put myself in his place. Would he have stopped if the positions were reversed? I thought no way. We were both married.
‘Neither of us had an awful lot of money. Sandra was pregnant.
‘I had no job. I had dedicated myself to boxing, training like mad morning, noon and night.
‘We had no future unless I could somehow start my life all over again. I carried on and honoured him at Loftus Road.
‘Stan Christodoulou was South African and told me that his friend
Nelson Mandela was a huge boxing follower and a fan of mine and had listened to the fight in his cell on Robben Island.
‘He said he saw the resemblance with his own position as a man of peace. We tried to arrange a meeting and I regret it never happened, unlike the way everything else took off in my life after that night.’
To name but a few, the Ireland homecomings, the first athlete not born in the UK to be BBC Sports Personality Of The Year, the MBE.
‘It was amazing,’ he says. ‘We reached across the world. I was on the cover of magazine and the Americans bombarded me, with television crews coming to Clones to make documentaries.
‘It flew by all too quickly. But it was the greatest time of my life.’
Now he is enduring the worst time of his life. We are standing the socially obligatory two metres apart on the sunny Whitstable cliff-top near his home.
Now the McGuigans are in mourning for their darling daughter Danika, known as Nika by them. Gone 11 months ago, at 33, having beaten off lymphatic cancer diagnosed when she was 11 but falling victim to a swift and deadly recurrence.
Now Barry is remembering Nika’s fight, not his own: ‘This is terrible. Such a lovely girl in every way.
‘Kind. Generous. I will never get used to her not being with us, but I have to learn to tolerate.
‘It’s so tough for Sandra. She was Sandra’s right hand and vice versa. Whenever they weren’t together they would talk on the phone 10 times a day. This is such a struggle.’
So difficult that he is suffering a crisis of faith. ‘I am having issues with God,’ he says. ‘I lost my father at 52. My brother committed suicide at 34. Now this. It’s horrendous. I dedicated my life to God. I believe I’m a good person. I am trying to reconcile this tragedy with the goodness of God.’
That process takes him back to the Poor Clare nuns in Ireland, to whom he turned ‘for comfort and reassurance’ when Young Ali died.
He says: ‘Sister Pasquale and Sister Mary are about 90 now but still with us. Great people.
‘They are doing their best to help. Perhaps I am getting there. But the pain is so much to bear.’
Reliving the greatest night of his life is nowhere near enough to assuage the hurt. Time to go back to Sandra.
With a sad smile the great Barry McGuigan heads for home. Your heart goes with him.