Beyond Good and Evil: Glyn Rhodes MBE, a Life in Boxing by Mark Turley

Author:Mark Turley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2022-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

19

BEFORE LEAVING Romania, we arranged for Totos to come to Sheffield, with the idea that he would use our gym for training and try to establish himself as a boxer. He came over soon after we returned, and we set him up in a little room next to the gym.

He lived there like a bear in a cave. The floor was always littered with drinks bottles and food packaging, but it suited him and was cheap.

Totos boxed for our amateur club for a while and did quite well, but things went awry when I received a phone call from South Yorkshire Police in the middle of the night. Apparently, they had picked him up prowling around the centre of Sheffield carrying a knife. As he had no family in England, I had to get up in the early hours and go to the police station, which I wasn’t too pleased about. When I got there, I was shown the knife, which was more like a sword. The sort of thing hunters would use to strip the skin off a deer or something. The kid must have thought he was Crocodile Dundee.

By this time, the Burton Street site where I set my gym up had attracted a variety of other businesses and projects, turning it into a thriving, community hub. I like to think our success may have had something to do with that. There was even a young offenders’ provision in the suite of rooms next to us, which seemed appropriate.

The transformation of the buildings, from disused primary school to symbol of Sheffield’s regeneration, garnered a lot of media interest and we were informed, to our surprise, that we had been slated for a royal visit. Prince Charles would be coming to have a look, during his upcoming trip to Yorkshire.

As the royal visit came closer, regular checks were made, during which royal security officers came to do a dry run of where Prince Charles would be walking. They checked out the entire site and wanted to know where every door led to. As part of that, I had to give the names of everyone who would be in the gym on the day, along with registration numbers of all the cars that would be parked outside.

On the morning of the visit, they returned with sniffer dogs to check for hidden explosives.

They let the dogs run around the gym for a while, then I was told I wouldn’t be allowed back in the gym until later, while they prepared everything. So, I went home for a shower and a bite to eat and planned to be back at 10am.

When I returned, I found the whole building in uproar. People ran around frantically, shouting into walkie-talkies. As I stepped through the door, I was grabbed by two security men.

‘Is there anyone in the building whose name you haven’t given to us?’ one of them asked.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I can’t think of anyone.’

‘Come with us.’

I was strongarmed through my own gym, to the door of Totos’ little bedroom.

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