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Micky Duff (left) with Martin Power at the Jewish Museum in Albert Street |
Boxers hit museum
BOXING legend Mickey Duff squared up to the current Bantamweight champ, St Pancras’s Martin Power on Tuesday night.
But the sparring was not a Rocky-style comeback for the retired boxer-turned-fight promoter – the pair met to help launch an exhibition of boxing history and it’s links with minority British cultures at the Jewish Museum in Albert Street, Camden Town, on Tuesday night. Other boxing figures at the opening included Jewish boxing champion Lou Lazar and featherweight title holder Sammy McCarthy.
Mr Duff won 69 professional fights in a four-and-a-half-year period, and said the sport had changed much since he hung up his gloves and dressing gown. He said: “I used to fight almost every week, unlike the boxers of today. If I’m being honest, it was partly because I liked earning good money.”
Fighting so regularly meant he had to tailor-make a training regime that lessened the chances of injuries and raised his stamina.
He said: “I’d do a lot of running. It helped me get up to my top condition. When I stepped into the ring, I would always feel much more comfortable if I had got 50 to 60 miles under my belt in the previous week.”
And he would be careful about his diet.
Martin Power said: “As a boxer from an Irish traveller background, it is great to see how the exhibition focuses on fighters from minority communixxties. It was really exciting to see all those generations of boxers side by side.”
And the son of one of the most famous London Jewish boxing families was also there.
Ronald Brown, who set up the Ronald Brown opticians in Kentish Town Road, was the son of ‘Young’ Johnny Brown and his father, also called Johnny Brown.
The pair were fighters in the first 30 years of the 20th century, and the exhibition includes momentoes of their careers, including gloves, shorts and belts.
But Ronald was not allowed to follow the family boxing dynasty.
He recalled; “My father retired when I was born in 1933 – he went on to become a masseur, and worked for actors, including John Mills, Sophie Tucker and Max Bygraves, among others.
“He didn’t want me to box, but I fought three fights at my local Jewish Youth Club in Leyton.”
• The exhibition Ghetto Warriors charts the story of minority boxers in Britain, from the 18th-century fighter Daniel Mendoza to Lennox Lewis and Amir Khan.
It runs from May 9 to September. |
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