A Boxing Memory: Henry Cooper

A Boxing Memory: Henry Cooper

By Garry White

It surprised me to discover that I have never before written about Sir Henry Cooper. Some boxers are so famous that there hardly seems to be any point in treading over such well-worn ground, regurgitating the same old statistics and tales that have been recounted a million times already. I have never touched Cooper’s old foe Muhammad Ali for the same reason. What could I possibly say about ‘The Greatest’ that hasn’t been said by a host of more eloquent writers already? Yet, to utterly contradict all the above, I have covered Mike Tyson innumerable times. 

I think the difference is that I saw Tyson in the flesh, growing up in the 80s, as a fixture on early Sunday morning television where he routinely eviscerated whichever unfortunate, outgunned soul that happened to be put in front of him. Whereas, in the case of Cooper and Ali, despite having watched their fights numerous times on video, their ring careers pre-date me. I never saw or experienced them in real-time. Only at the end of the game when everything was already mapped out and pre-determined by the history books. I am always, therefore, condemned to look at them differently from the fighters from my own time and place. It goes without saying that Ali is widely considered to be the greatest sportsman of the 20th century. Transcending boxing, he became one of the most recognisable faces and egos on the planet, perhaps the greatest pop culture icon of them all. It may therefore sound foolish to mention Cooper in the same breath, outside, of course, the two occasions when they faced each other in the ring, but in Britain, at least this is not to overstate his case. In some ways, Cooper transcended it as well but in a quieter, non-political, more British way.

For so long, Cooper was the embodiment of heavyweight boxing in Britain. A key spike in the graph between the ancient Himalayan point of Bob Fitzsimmons, the foothill of Frank Bruno, and the K2 of Lennox Lewis. His was the elongated landscape of British ‘Horizontal Heavyweights’ and the jaundiced, saccharine mirth of American commentators. A place of plucky honourable losers like Don Cockell, who bled with dignified honour and pride for Britain, but never truly got within a ghost of bringing pugilism’s blue-ribband belt home across the Atlantic. Nor did Cooper, for that matter. His one challenge for the richest prize in sports was curtailed in six rounds by Ali, who chipped away at the Londoner’s sharp cheekbones to such an extent, that when the referee stepped in, Cooper’s face looked like it had been attacked by a buzzsaw. That was the early summer of 1966. Just down the road at Wembley two months later, England would lift the football World Cup for the first and so far, only time. In this better world, before the advent of an alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies, the opportunity would never appear in his orbit again.

Yet Cooper reigned supreme at British and Empire/Commonwealth level, retaining his crown for an unparalleled 12 years [winning three Lonsdale belts outright] and the European title for an impressive three. At a time when there was [mostly] only one recognised world champion these titles took on far greater prominence than they do in today’s cluttered landscape of ‘official’ world titles and ancillary International, inter-continental, Silver et al belts hawked out by the sports sanctioning bodies. Cooper fought tough Welshman Joe Erskine five times over seven years, with the British and Commonwealth championship on the line in four of them. 

He ultimately won the rubber three-two despite being outpointed in their first two encounters. Ever resilient and a whole-hearted trier the Londoner had earlier in his career recovered from a four-fight losing streak; three of them in challenges for British, Commonwealth, or European honours. Despite these setbacks, Cooper pressed forward, in the manner of his no-nonsense style in the ring, and came out on top in fabled domestic rivalries with the likes of Brian London, Dick Richardson, Jack Bodell, and Billy Walker. 

His seventeen years in the ring were crammed-full of laudable achievements that were grid-referenced between his debut as a 20-year-old in 1954 at Haringey Arena and his final controversial defeat to Joe Bugner in the spring of 1971. In between, there were 40 wins, 14 losses, and one draw. 

Being naturally left-handed, Cooper’s decision to box out of the orthodox stance meant that he possessed uncharacteristically formidable power in his lead hand. His left hook was delivered at such an angle and trajectory that it was halfway to being a savage uppercut. Known as ‘Henry’s Hammer’ it is the stuff of British boxing folklore, but to redress the balance the boxing gods trapped him in a 190 lbs frame and skin that would lacerate at the merest introduction to a punch. But when all is said and done, neither this nor the numbers in the win column really tell you a thing about Sir Henry Cooper [still boxing’s only knight]. Or more specifically to accord him his proper title ‘Our ‘Enry.’

On my wall at home, I have a small, framed photograph of Cooper. In it, he stands like a predatory lion, having landed a coruscating left hook straight on the button. In front of him is the sprawling figure of Cassius Clay, tumbling backwards into the ropes in blank confusion. The picture itself treads one or two stratospheres above iconic. There can’t be a real boxing fan anywhere that hasn’t seen the still or watched the clip of the fight. This is the moment that encapsulated Cooper’s career. The brief second when Henry’s famous ‘Hammer’ landed flush on the cocksure American, whose loudmouthed eccentricities were still yet to be embraced or understood by the British public. The ropes and the bell saved Clay more than the misplaced myth alleging any sharp practice from Angelo Dundee in his corner. 

In the bottom left of the picture in shaky handwriting is the message ‘Best wishes, Sir Henry Cooper’. Sadly, it’s not an original. It’s a copy of a copy of a copy, plucked straight from the bargain depths of EBay. But it is no less diminished for this. Elsewhere, I have a poster for his world title fight with Ali and another for his British, Empire, and European scrap with big, broken-nosed Brian London.

So why all this for a fighter who lost 14 times, never won a world title, and retired from the sport six years before I was born? It is because Cooper was one of those sportsmen whose aura was able to extend itself beyond the limited boundaries of his chosen discipline. A man who, despite his many successes, possessed a wealth of heart, character, and decency that could not be restrained by the gathering of tawdry ribbons or reflected only by the cold banality of winning.

From the moment Cooper laced on gloves till he breathed his last in leafy Surrey, he carried in his horny-handed mitts Britain’s best view of itself. The straight back and the gruff cockney vowels, always accompanied by a half-smile and never a hint of bombast. You knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever the situation that Henry would always do the right thing. Unlike his near-namesake Gary Cooper, he didn’t need a six-gun, yet Integrity was stamped through him like a stick of Margate rock.

As Boxing News editor Matt Christie recently wrote of Britain’s newly crowned WBO cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith, “[He] is the archetypal British hero, the everyman who’s honest, humble, and holds his roots dear.” – those lines could have been written for Cooper. Indeed, Billam-Smith just happens to be the latest carrier of their lineage.

Speaking of roots, I must have passed through Bellingham railway station more than a thousand times over the past 20 years. This unprepossessing enclave of southeast London is where Cooper grew up before being sent to rural Sussex as a childhood evacuee. Despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe, the little Cooper family home still stands at 120 Farmstead Road, complete with a formal blue plaque and all. One day, I will need to finally decamp from the train there and go and do the kind of homage that I am sure a man like Cooper would find unforgivably embarrassing. 

As a consequence of time and circumstance, my memories of him will always be of an old man. The kind revered by other old men, in such a way that you take note and soak up that adulation and ultimately share it. Such thoughts call to mind another picture that I have of Cooper. In it, he sports midnight black sunglasses, a neat suit, a thin straight tie, and a raincoat. The glasses are most likely shielding the ubiquitous ‘shiner’ and several inches of painful scar tissue. But the picture itself is so evocative of a time and place that merely looking at it has a transformative quality. It is Michael Caine in The Ipcress File, John Profumo, David Bailey, and Mary Quant all rolled into one. A place of unfurled black umbrellas and pinstripe suits vying with miniskirts and Nehru collars for primacy.

A last remnant of ‘Rat Pack’ style, where men still wore dinner suits at ringside, and the wispy fog of their cigar smoke drew like a moth to the ring lights. A time when boxing meant more to more people than it does now. Yes, it was presided over by the same calibre of vain, self-interested crooks that continue to feast on it now; they just happened to have a greater sense of style, that’s all. But still, there was something altogether different about it. Something that can never again be captured no matter how hard you stare back into these black-and-white pictures from the uncatchable past.