The little old ladies in the tearoom knew nothing about boxing but broke into spontaneous applause
Muhammad Ali was the most famous man in the world but that meant little to the commissionaire barring his way into the BBC studios in London.
“I don’t care who you are – you can’t come in. No photos allowed,” he barked.
Ali looked at me and rolled his eyes. I was hanging out with The Greatest during his visit to London in 1978 to promote his role as former slave Gideon Jackson in the movie Freedom Road.
He was a guest on a live show on Radio 1. But when his 25-strong entourage turned up at Broadcasting House, there was a problem. Accompanying Ali was Howard Bingham, his friend and photographer who documented his career.
“Bingham is my man,” protested Ali. “Everywhere the champ goes… he goes.”
But the doorman was having none of it.
Quick as a flash, Ali turned to the rest of us and said: “Let’s go… run.”
Ali burst through the door and sprinted through the corridors of the building as we struggled to keep up.
We eventually found our way to the Radio 1 studio where Ali was a guest alongside world darts champion John Lowe.
He challenged Ali to a game. But when Ali threw the arrows, they hit the board like harpoons and almost burst a hole in the wall.
Earlier, I’d gone to the Dorchester Hotel to interview Ali about his film.
I hero-worshipped him. So when I heard his booming voice behind the door, I was gripped by nerves.
We were running late, so I got to ride in the back of Ali’s limo, interviewing him as we sped through London. It was fascinating.
Boxing pundit Harry Carpenter once said if you’d taken Ali up in a plane, threw him out with a parachute on his back at 35,000ft, no matter where he landed, the first person he met would have known him.
After the BBC visit, we returned to the Dorchester. Ali was out on his feet as he sipped coffee in the tearoom.
A little girl asked him for an autograph. He signed her piece of paper but as she walked away, Ali shouted in mock anger: “Little lady. Haven’t you forgotten something?” He then pointed to his cheek, demanding a kiss. He was swamped by kids and spent time talking to them all.
All the little old ladies in the tearoom knew nothing about boxing but they all gave him a spontaneous round of applause when he left.
I met Ali again in 1993, when he was promoting a book of Bingham’s photographs.It was like e Beatlemania multiplied d by 10. I helped bring Ali li to Scotland for a book signing in Glasgow.
When he reached Waterstones, 6000 people were in the queue and he stopped the traffic.
One journalist had slated Ali, saying he had spent the entire flight from London practising how to sign his name. He sneered that the boxer – who was slowing up physically as Parkinson’s disease began to grip his body – was a shadow of his former self.
He got it wrong. Ali had sat on the plane signing hundreds of religious leaflets and dished them out to youngsters who couldn’t afford the book.
He figured that if he signed the leaflets, they wouldn’t throw them away and maybe take some good from the message they carried.
I called Ibrox Stadium and tracked down Ally McCoist.
“Get your backside here… fast,” I told the Rangers star.
McCoist – infamous for his lack of punctuality – arrived within 20 minutes.
I introduced him to Ali and set up a once-in-a-lifetime photo of the moment Super Ally met the real super Ali.
After four hours signing every autograph, Ali moved on to Edinburgh, travelling on the 5pm “commuter special” to Waverley. Office workers couldn’t believe their eyes.
Somebody once said you should never meet your heroes. If they’d met Muhammad Ali, they’d have changed their tune.
He was The Greatest – in the ring and out of it. Today, I’m heartbroken. The whole world is heartbroken. We have lost our champion.