By Terence Dooley
When former light-heavyweight pro and amateur trainer Phil Martin, 14-6 (6), turned a building that had lain derelict for over a decade in the riot hit district of Moss Side into a boxing gym in 1982 few could have imagined just how far-reaching the impact of the Princess Park road-based gym, which he named Champs Camp, would become as it rose out of the ashes left by the two-days of rioting in July 1981.
Two thousand pounds of personal savings and a few jumble sales provided Martin with the start-up money; he used this investment to create an high-tech environment for a conveyor belt of British champions—four of them held British titles simultaneously by 1993: Carl Thompson (cruiserweight), Frank Grant (middleweight), Maurice Core (light-heavyweight) and Paul Burke (lightweight).
“I couldn’t see no vision to tell the truth, but Phil saw more than just the piles of bricks,” explained Maurice Core when giving me a tour of the Phil Martin Centre, which houses the boxing gym, a weights room, a downstairs keep fit area and an office, where they keep up the local outreach work started by Martin.
Core first strolled into the gym while smoking a cigarette, he saw the level of commitment that was expected, not to mention Martin’s stony countenance, and walked back out again. The 19-year-old ditched the cigarettes and came back, remarkably making it to an ABA middleweight semi-final in his first year as an amateur—a first-round defeat to Johnny Melfah, who challenged Herol Graham for the British title as a pro (L TKO 5 in 1988).
Core turned professional in 1990; he rose quickly, winning the Lonsdale belt with a ninth-round win over Noel Magee in September 1992. It was a poignant moment for his trainer, Martin had challenged for the same title in 1976 only to drop a close decision to Tim Wood.
“Phil had lost his British title fight, so when I won my title he joked that he’d have a cabinet made to put it in himself,” recalled Core. “I got a lot of friends all of a sudden. You got respect and the rest of it, but you had to respect yourself because you’d achieved something.”
“We were young fighters looking to go somewhere, we had that hunger,” added former British, European and WBO cruiserweight champion Carl Thompson. “The Cat” retired in 2006 with a 34-6 (25) slate. “We were top dogs—you had to hold your own (in sparring and training). That is something we took over to the fights.”
Martin held a qualification in Sports Science. His appreciation of the mental side of the game helped former British light-middleweight titlist and world title challenger Ensley Bingham—he bowed out in 1999 with a 20-8 (16) record—win one of the biggest fights of his amateur career.
“Ted Kershaw was around back then—a top fighter,” said Bingham after putting Champs Camp prospects Jimmy Kelly, 12-0 (4), and Ryan Doyle, 9-1 (5), through their paces.
“I had to fight Ted in the first round of the West Lancashire division of the ABAs. I was dropping from light-middle to welter and people thought: ‘He won’t be able to do this!’ I put on baggy shorts and strapped ankle weights to the tops of my thighs. I come to the scales knowing I’m bang on welterweight, but the extra weight put me up to 11st 2½lb. Phil said: ‘No problem, we’ll be back’. Then he shouted: ‘[To welterweight contender] Ossie [Maddix], bring me that washing up liquid from my kitbag’.
“We sent the story out that this washing up liquid had a magic formula, and when I put it up my arse it would help me do the mightiest dump and lose the weight! I got rid of the weights, Phil takes me back to the scales and I make the 10st 7lbs. Ted no longer had a bye and they thought I’d killed myself to make weight. Then we fight and the decision comes in, unanimous for Bingham.”
Martin also encouraged pack behaviour, asking his fighters to push each other hard in training, sparring and even running. Core, though, was the top dog when it came to roadwork, but Bingham managed to out-smart Core on one occasion. Just the one, mind.
“Phil’s philosophy was that if you were fitter than your opponent then you had a chance to beat them,” stated Bingham. “I knew that the fitter I was the better my condition was. It was crazy, they leathered me in those early runs, but then I started leaving some behind.
“Maurice was the top man of running. I remember one morning—and it was just the one—where he must have been out the night before and all the boys met up for our run. You start of talking about the night before, having a laugh, then it all goes deadly quiet at the halfway mark and everyone’s watching everyone until someone breaks out of the pack.
“This time, me and Maurice took off and we were urging each other on. I remember getting to some traffic lights. Maurice was slowing down, so I saw a little gap and shot across, leaving Maurice behind—that’s how I beat him that time! It was all over the gym the next day.”
At this point in the conversation, Core entered the room, prompting Bingham and I into an awkward silence. “He’s just told the running story, hasn’t he?” asked Core before reiterating the point that it was a one-off.
By May 1990, Core had served serious notice of the gym’s intent when drawing with Nicky Piper. Thompson went one further, scoring a third-round TKO win over the Welshman in September 1991—both results were away from home, in Hertfordshire and London respectively, as Martin believed in the "Have gloves will travel" approach.
Champs Camp always evoked images of a rugged gym in an area that was menaced by drugs, guns and gangs, where just getting to the front door was an act of courage. Indeed, Martin lost two fighters to drugs: ABA lightweight semi-finalist Mario Culpepper and Horace Thompson. Future award-winning trainer Joe Gallagher put these thoughts to one side when making a decision that changed his life.
“I was a 16-year-old amateur working with Jimmy Egan,” said Gallagher, who boxed as an amateur under Martin before running the amateur club.
“One morning, I jumped on a bus and walked up those stairs. I was a bit nervous, Phil was intimidating, but I asked if I could join his gym and he said: ‘Yes’. Then I ran like a giddy kid back to the bus stop to get back to Wythenshawe.
“I was a kid going to Mosside, not the friendliest of places at the time, but I wanted to better myself. Phil was a giant in the area who welcomed me with open arms. I became part of that team, that unity.”
“I’ve known boxers who went in there and never came back again, but I was from Salford, a rough city, and it never fazed me one little bit,” recalled Steve Foster, the former Commonwealth light-middleweight champion who retired with a 20-17-2 (10) record after losing to Mpush Makambi in December 1999.
“Steve had these good looks and a straight nose, so we wondered how he’d lost some fights,” added Core when asked about his first impressions of the man later known as “The Viking”. “He was put in sparring and had a tough time at first.”
“Well, those lads turned me over big time for the first few months—I was like target practice for them—but I soon turned that around,” admitted Foster, taking up Core’s story. “I was very pleased with the results I got with Phil. The lads in that gym were probably the best mates I’ve ever known in boxing—it was fantastic.
“At the back of your mind, you wonder how good you are, but when you’ve got those types of names coming to watch you—Frank Grant, Maurice Core and Ensley Bingham, champions and mates—then it spurs you on.”
Famously, Martin even gave Chris Eubank short shrift when Eubank popped in during his ill-conceived 1993 “peace” tour of the area.
“Frank [Grant] had stopped Herol [Graham in Leeds for the British title], so he was getting quite a bit of publicity at the time,” revealed Core, who now manages the gym and community centre.
“Eubank came in. He ignored everyone else then he pointed his cane at a picture of Frank and said: ‘I want to talk to this man’. Phil said: ‘You come in here and don’t say a word to no one, so you can just fuck off’.”
“Someone had asked me about Eubank, I said that Nigel Benn was my type of fighter,” explained Frank Grant, the object of Eubank’s affectations had wrested the British title from Graham by ninth-round TKO in September 1992.
“If you’re fighting a southpaw as a southpaw then it takes away the awkwardness because you’ve got the same stance,” he said. “It becomes a matter of determination, a good chin and fitness. The day of the fight, I felt great and powerful, so strong when I got into the ring—it all came together. I knew that if we were still there after six-rounds the fight would be mine.
“If I fought Herol 10 times then I’d probably beat him twice. If I could have avoided him then I probably would of, he wasn’t anybody’s type of fighter. People couldn’t even spar with him.”
He added: “Herol was an awkward fighter. In British folklore he’s one of the best fighters to never win a world title, but he had a style that made it hard to beat him. For me, guys like Mike Tyson, Nigel Benn and Mark Kaylor were better to watch because they were fighters.”
Throw in Paul Burke’s away day upset win over Billy Schwer in London for the British and Commonwealth title in February 1993 and the gym was on the rise. Sadly, it started to fall apart when Martin was diagnosed with cancer.
“He told me: ‘I’ve got this cancer, but I’ll beat it’,” recalled Core. “Even at the end, he was trying to set me up with Manny [Steward]. It makes you think about the type of person you want to be when you watch a person like that, who is dying, still trying to sort things out.”
“Phil told me to go and train in Denmark, I think he didn’t want me around while he was dying,” added Core. “I got a call saying to come back. I was stuck in the airport when I got the news. I cried all night. I was very angry. Phil’s career was cut short. Then I lost my first fight without him [L TKO 4 to Fabrice Tiozzo for the EBU title in October 1994]. It was hard.”
Following Martin’s death, a group of fighters went with his former assistant Billy Graham, who later guided Ricky Hatton to the very top of the light-welterweight division. Core travelled down to London to hook up with Jimmy Tibbs. He said: “The guys went their way and I went my way. I didn’t feel there was much here for me. When someone’s been that big in your life it is hard to find that again.
Enough was enough, Core retired in 1996 after losing to Mark Prince in seven-rounds. “I knew when Phil died that that my boxing career was just hanging on,” he said. “Phil made a hard floor for us to build on. We had faith in Phil; we knew that if we trained then he’d take care of everything else. He gave us so much and showed us so much.”
The full article appeared in the October issue of Boxing Monthly. Visit the following link to purchase that copy or subscribe to the world's only independent boxing magazine: http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/1410/index.htm .
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