The Guv'nor (17 page)

Frank, Bobby and me went to Wembley to see the fight. Before we went in, we saw Alex pull up in his big white Rolls Royce and out stepped Paul Sykes. I don't know about any masters degrees – he looked a right ex-con.

Gardner had done him by the sixth round. Just before it was stopped on a technical knockout, I was watching one of Paul's seconds jumping up and down in the corner and screeching like a girl. ‘Do this, do that, box him, throw a left.' It was getting on my tits – I don't know about Sykes. All of a sudden, Paul turns to the second – dodgy thing to do in the middle of a fight – and shouts, ‘Fucking shut up!' Then Jim Brimmel, the ref, grabbed his arm and signalled the fight was over. I found out afterwards that for a second he thought he'd been stopped for swearing because he didn't think he was anywhere near losing.

I said to Frank, ‘Go on, shoot round the dressing room and tell
him personal that I'll fight him with gloves or without gloves. But I want an “all in” – the whole business, anything goes.'

He came back and said, ‘Alex Steen's already blown in his ear and it's all set, but it's got to be with gloves.'

I said, ‘Don't matter, I'll do him any way.'

Frank and Bobby were well pleased. They reckoned that if we held it at the Rainbow they'd pull in a stash. They put me down for a chunk, which I thought was a bit skinny, but I didn't say anything. It was better than a kick in the nuts, though I'd probably get a couple of them before I picked up the wedge. So I went back to training again.

After seeing Sykes perform at Wembley, I reckon he's a pushover, for me anyway. But Mickey said we'd better cover all the angles and one of them was to take a run up to Blackpool and have a word with the bloke who used to train Sykes. I met the trainer and for a little drink he put me wise on the best way to do the business on Paul. Then he sent us along to see a doctor who'd been involved in the training. This doctor said, ‘I'll give you an injection that'll make you a very strong man.'

‘Fuck off,' I said, ‘I don't take drugs. I hate them and I'm well strong enough already.' He gives me some old fanny though, said it wouldn't do any harm, so I let him do it.

Later on, I went for a run. Five miles was usually plenty for me, but this time I couldn't stop. I did 15 and felt like I could do the same again. For two days I was wide awake and raring to go.

I went back to the doctor and said, ‘What have you put me on? It's driving me crackers.'

‘That's a new steroid – very potent.'

I said, ‘It's made me like a fucking raging bull. I don't need it, I'm a raging bull anyway.' I have never taken drugs since, unless you count what was forced on me in prison, and that's another story.

A week before the off, Sykes went into a club in Wakefield where he lives, got well pissed and had a ruck with four doormen. He did them all but one of them got lucky and put a cut above his eye that took eight stitches to pull together. Then he was on the blower to Alex saying the fight's off and we're all bolloxed.

This fight's been hyped all over the place – ‘bout of the century' and all that cobblers to sell the tickets. It's been all over the papers and on television. Then Frank gives me a knock back when he says ‘Len, it's all out the window.'

Anyway, they dug up a geezer from somewhere. Big strong lad, but nutty as a fruitcake. I could've done this kid with no hands, but I
didn't. I played around with him. First round I danced all round the ring with him, then just before the bell I knocked him clean out, picked him up, and dropped him in his corner. He had time to come round and we're off again. I whispered in his ear, ‘Stay on your feet, go the distance, and I won't hurt you.' He was still a bit groggy from being knocked out but he heard me and gave a nod. I did this for ten rounds, letting him get a few punches in to knock his points up. Final bell, they totalled the points and Donny Adams, who was the ref this night, couldn't believe what he was doing when he had to hold up the other bloke's hand.

I'd been pretty busy with the fight game for a few years but I was still around to help people out or do a few favours. I've said I don't do favours for nothing, but now and then I'll sort something out if I think a liberty's been taken.

I walked into a club one night and I saw a pal of mine, who'll remain nameless. He looked a bit sad and I wasn't surprised because his young brother had been murdered and the slags who'd done it had just got acquitted at the Bailey. I said, ‘How you going, mate, holding up?' His eyes filled up and he said, ‘No, Len, I'm not. I miss me brother bad and what's gutted me is the c**ts that done him are pissing it up round the Basing House and bragging about their result.' All I could say was, ‘Hold it together, son, they'll get theirs when the time's right.'

Now this bloke is well pissed, and has been losing himself in the bottle ever since the trial. He pulled out a handgun and started waving it about.

‘I'm going after the lot of them now,' he said. ‘Me brother would've done it if it was the other way round.' I took the shooter off him, calmed him down, and talked him into letting me handle it. As I told him, if he went tearing round the pub in his state he was going to get himself killed or end up being lifed off for murder. ‘You know you can trust me,' I said. ‘I promise you they won't be laughing by the end of the week.'

Now, I'm too well known to put myself up for this one, but I would've loved to have sorted them slags with my bare hands. Got to use the nut, though. No point in saving him from a murder charge and getting one myself. So I got in touch with a firm out of South London and called in a favour of my own.

Within the week, like I promised, the three of them were well
sorted and put in hospital – one of them in intensive care. Didn't cost a penny and there was no comeback. Old Bill didn't even interview my pal, so it shows how interested they were in tracking down whoever had done it. It didn't do anything for my pal's brother but it made him feel a lot better knowing they'd got the justice the law couldn't provide. There was no chance of my name coming up in connection with that business, even though it was well known that we were good mates. As it happens, when it went down Ritchie and me were in Scotland, so we were well out of it.

Arthur, my Scottish mate, had invited us both to stay with him and while we were there he took us to see the Jim Watt fight at Ibrox Park, Glasgow. We got a plane up there and he met us at the airport and took us straight back to his home, where his wife Rita had a big spread laid on. His place wasn't just one house, it was two knocked together and inside it was like a palace. Giving it the once over, you didn't need half an eye to see the whole place was like Fort Knox. Arthur hadn't survived as long as he had without taking a few precautions.

You have to speak as you find. He was a tough man – big barrel chest and a fighter's face – but a proper gentleman who treated me like a son. A lot of people wouldn't have had the same opinion.

The papers called him the most dangerous man in Scotland. Nobody who crossed him ever got away with it, not even the law. In a case during the Sixties, one copper decided he was better off emigrating after being threatened with having his house bombed. On and off in the early years he did about ten years' bird for assault, robbery, safe blowing and housebreaking. Six times the law got him to court for razor slashings, but they never managed to pin anything on him.

If Reg and Ron Kray needed a bit of ‘sorting' north of the border, Arthur was the man they called on, and he never let them down. Got himself a nickname as the ‘Assassin', that's how well he did his job. Three months after he got an acquittal for killing Jim Goldie and Pat Welch, he was setting off to drive his mother-in-law to the shops, but as he turned the key a bomb went off under the car killing Margaret instantly. Arthur survived but, as far as I know, the bombers didn't.

While I was sitting on a murder charge myself, Arthur wrote to me every week without fail. Then he missed a week and I guessed something was up because he could be relied on. I had to wait until the following week to find out in his letter that his son, Arthur Junior, had been shot dead at the front door while he was on home leave
from an 11-year stretch. Arthur was gutted and I don't think he ever got over it. But heartbroken as he was, it didn't stop him from sorting out the bastards responsible. On the day they were burying his boy, the two blokes responsible were found shot dead, in a car, in the East End of Glasgow.

The first thing I set my eyes on when I woke up the next morning was this man that straight people think of as ‘that terrible gangster'. He was standing by my bed, a breakfast tray in his hands, and wearing the widest tartan braces I have ever seen in my life – they must have been four inches across.

‘Fuck me, Arthur,' I said, ‘ain't they invented belts up here yet?' He put the tray down, gave his braces a twang, and growled, ‘See these, son? I bought them in Galashiels in 1951 and they're as good as new.' Then he dropped the daily papers on my chest saying, ‘I hope you're making an exception for me in your headlines.'

I grabbed the
People
and right across the front page was
LENNY MCLEAN SAYS ALL SCOTS ARE PORRIDGE-GUZZLING COWARDS
. He was giving me his menacing look. ‘I never said that Arthur, honest. What I said was, “They're all porridge-guzzling c**ts.”' We had a good laugh at that. ‘This is down to Ritchie you know. I told that to him yesterday – I didn't expect him to ring the papers with it, though. What's going on?'

He didn't have to answer. As I read the papers I could see that Ritchie's got me challenging every hard man in Scotland:
‘After the Jim Watt fight on Saturday, the “Cockney Guv'nor” will throw out a challenge to any Scotsman willing to take him on. Come on, lads, who will flatten this Sassenach and defend Scotland's honour?'

Arthur was laughing. I said, ‘You and Ritchie set this up between you, didn't you?'

‘Aye,' he said, ‘couldn't resist making a few shillings out of you while you're here – help pay for your lodgings.'

We saw the Watt fight and with everybody keyed up about the match we sat back and waited for the challenges. On Monday afternoon we got a call from somebody putting up John Curry. ‘Leave it out, Arthur,' I said. ‘I ain't fighting a poncy ice skater.'

‘No, son' – he always called me son – ‘this is a very different Curry and a very hard man – well known, and his name will have the side bets pouring in.'

We never even had a chance to have a word with him. Two days later we got a call from the same bloke as before. Curry's got
himself nicked doing an armed robbery and he's in custody. So that's blown out.

Straight away we get another challenge, so we grab it with both hands before this bastard chokes on a haggis or something. Five grand side-stake, with six-ounce gloves, as near bare knuckles as the law allows. Not brilliant money, but a good start. Arthur fixed up the fight in one of his clubs, got the tickets and posters sorted, and we're off.

This geezer, Robert Young, looked the business. He was 6ft 7½in tall, weighed in at 17 stone, and at one time was the heavyweight champion of the First Royal Scots, a right flash Scottish regiment. That's where he'll fall down. I'm a street fighter, he's a boxer – we think different. He's been trained up on all that Queensberry stuff. I don't know what the rules are, and never wanted to know.

I like to get a bit of needle going right from the start; it throws your opposition's concentration. So as we touched gloves, I said, ‘Is that right that you guardsmen are all poofters?' Lovely, touched a sore point. We didn't even wait for the bell, he swung a vicious right and I planted one up his derby as it skimmed past my head. I caught him in the ribs with a left and as that brought him down nearer my height I nutted him in the face. He's gone. Both his eyebrows are split and the blood's blinding him. Hit a blind man? Too fucking right. I hit him right on the point of his chin and he was spark out before he hit the deck. One minute twenty-five seconds, not a mark on me and five large in the bin.

That Scotch mob didn't like it one bit. They were booing and shouting and doing their nut. I stamped around the ring like a wild man shouting to the crowd, ‘You don't fucking like it, come up here and have some.' They screamed even louder, but it didn't matter where I looked, I couldn't get one of those mugs to catch my eye. I was right, they're all mouth. They didn't have the bottle, though I think that Arthur's boys being all round the ring packing shooters might have had something to do with keeping some of them in their seats. If they hadn't been there, I think I could have had the whole lot climbing through the ropes.

As I moved up the aisle from the ring, somebody tapped me on the arm and said, ‘I'll be seeing you, Jimmy,' then he was pushed out of the way by Arthur's team of hard boys. I look back and he's talking to Ritchie – after my autograph I expect.

When we got in the car, Ritchie said, ‘I've got you fixed up for Thursday – £16,000 – winner takes all.'

Arthur said to me, ‘It's that laddie that spoke to you just now. I know him, he's been running the Bar L for years.'

I said, ‘What's that, one of your clubs?'

They both looked at each other and laughed. ‘Sort of, Lenny … it's Scotland's toughest prison.'

I said, ‘Make it early, then – I've told my Val I'll be home late Thursday.'

This time Arthur fixes it up in one of his pubs. Well, not inside, in the back yard – bit exclusive. It's going to be all-in, bare knuckles, and as Scottish law is the same as down south we've got to be a bit cagey.

Before we set off for the fight, me and Ritchie packed our gear in our hold-alls. We wouldn't be coming back to Provenhall that night. We'd do the business and get off home. While I was packing, Arthur came in and sat on the bed.