Past Times

Fight of the Century

Michael Simmons (1946-52) remembers one of the Green Cup’s strangest bouts

In my time, St Paul’s had a great reputation as a boxing school. Translate that to modern days and anxious parents would be rushing to remove their boys from the School for fear that their half-formed brains would be reduced to scrambled eggs. The height or the depth, depending on your point of view, of the School’s boxing year was the Green Cup. This competition was not only open to all but compulsory for all boys in their early years. As we became more senior, ways became apparent to wriggle out of competing in order to preserve our newly acquired dignity.

This was an inter-Club competition and you acquired one point for your Club by appearing in the first round. Many of us hoped that our participation would terminate at that stage without having suffered too much pain. In theory, we were matched by weight and ability but that became an impossible dream in the first round as there were far too many entrants whose abilities or the lack of them were unknown to those in charge. Some nasty mismatches were bound to occur and you had to rely on those running the show to bring proceedings speedily to an end before real damage was done. They were not sadists or at least I do not think so. Mr Williams was the professional boxing instructor and a decent enough type. I think he found it difficult to cope with the multiplicity of wiles and excuses that Paulines would employ to escape his clutches.

The master in charge, who always struck me as a man of mystery in his impeccable blue suit, was “Bo” Langham (1916-56 and 1959-60) He must have had a real name but I never discovered what it was. By no means young, he took delight in standing in the ring and encouraging us to hit him as hard as possible in the stomach area. He had muscles of iron & we did far more damage to ourselves than we ever did to him. Digressing for the moment, St Paul’s at the time was a tough school with heavy penalties for transgressing its many rules. Nevertheless, there was a strong and healthy streak of subversion about. The trick was to go so far and no further. You needed not to be on the list when the call went out to bring in the usual suspects. I had the greatest difficulty explaining to my sceptical mother that the High Master’s cryptic comment at the end of my term’s report “the leopard has not changed his spots” indicated just how well I was doing.

At some stage in the future, someone will write about the importance of the Number 28 Bus in the history of Pauline intellectual development. In those days, St Paul’s regularly raided the North London prep schools, particularly the Hall, to recruit their best talent. Jonathan Miller (1947-53) and Oliver Sacks (1946-51) were part of the same trawl.

You wait patiently at the bus stop and then two polymaths come along together. What happy co-incidence drew them against each other in the first round of that year’s Green Cup! If the match had been properly publicised, tickets could have been sold at a premium. As it was, I heard of it at the last moment and sloped over to the gym to watch the entertainment. There were not too many present with Messrs Williams and Langham presiding but the protagonists did not let us down.

Imagine a very bad, black and white Hollywood B film of the 30s entitled something like “Wars of the Prehistoric World” or “Clash of the Cavemen.” The task of animation has been handed over to a drunken prop man on his last job working in some back lot. The dinosaurs move jerkily or hardly at all. Realism is completely forgotten. Tyrannosaurus Rex would be ashamed of his Hollywood-created descendant. The fight between the two pseudo beasts carries no conviction whatsoever. Thus Jonathan and Oliver went about each other. It looked so awful and contrived that you might have thought that they had rehearsed it. Knowing Jonathan’s genius for improvisation having stage managed him in the Colet Clubs’ Review, I knew that not to be the case. They huffed and they puffed; they grunted and growled; they stamped their feet; they uttered weird and wonderful cries; they slowly circled each other exchanging imaginary blows. What they never did

was hit each other. If smoke and flame had belched forth from their slavering jaws, nobody would have been in the slightest surprised.

Meanwhile, it was difficult not to be distracted by watching the faces of Langham and Williams who both looked as if they had swallowed something increasingly bitter. They could have stopped what passed for a fight but they seemed paralysed by the spectacle. We who were privileged to be watching were equally paralysed but by mirth. My ribs were aching. Eventually, things came to an exhausted halt. There was no winner. By some clever managerial trick, neither Miller nor Sacks progressed to the next round of the competition. The Green Cup was never the same again in our eyes. They say that Paulines are known for portraying a healthy scepticism. Events like this show how it is created. Incidentally, I entitled this article “the Fight of the Century.” Of course, I meant the last century. 

At some stage in the future, someone will write about the importance of the Number 28 Bus in the history of Pauline intellectual development.