INNER COOKED BY BILLY BACKUS
ONE of the highlights of my life was going to Canastota for the International Boxing Hall of Fame ceremony in 2002.
While there, I met two guys who remain my friends today: a man from the Netherlands and another from Brazil. We were each only there for three days, but although we were strangers, we had the same interest: boxing. We formed a close friendship over the three days.
We met all the champs – what a thrill! – including ex-world welterweight champion Billy Backus.
He welcomed us into his home and cooked dinner for us. What great memories! Dave Hooper, Frankston, Australia
TRIBUTE TO TOMMY
ON a recent visit to the central Scottish town of Alloa, I discovered by chance that the new public library there is not only named after Alloa’s former Scottish lightweight champion Tommy Spiers, but that inside the building’s foyer, in a glass display case, there is a statue of Spiers in fighting pose.
In the 1930s, Spiers fought the likes of Newcastle’s Seaman Tommy Watson and Bethnal Green’s Harry Corbett, who were both ex-british champions at the time.
I wonder if Spiers is the only British boxer to have his hometown’s main public library named after him? Brian Donald, Menstrie
A BOXING MECCA
I STUMBLED upon a lost piece of boxing history in New York recently while walking around Lower East Side in Manhattan.
The famed Gramercy Gym, opened in 1939, which hosted Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres among others, no longer exists, but on East 14th Street near Irving Place, homage is paid on the site of the former gym to the late, great Italianamerican manager/trainer Constantine D’amato.
The street sign there reads ‘Cus D’amato Way’. People will forever associate Cus with the peek-a-boo style he developed in upstate New York, and for his work with Mike Tyson in the early 1980s.
This being said, as the yellow Manhattan cabs sped past me, I paused to reflect that it was in fact at this very location, and not in Catskill, that the famous ‘Willie Bag’ and numbers system was developed to assist Torres in defeating Willie Pastrano for the world light-heavyweight title in 1965. Matt Long, Burton ABC