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It’s one of the most iconic moments in British film. A large, muscular man in shorts swings a huge hammer to ring a bigger gong and another Rank movie begins. There were four ‘gongmen’ down the years, and the second was a true East End boxing hero, the first man to win a Lonsdale Belt, and the victim of a misconceived colour bar that denied him a sizeable slice of fame and fortune. Bombardier Billy Wells could have put his first through that Rank Gong - it was only made of papier mache, sprayed with metallic looking paint. The familiar chime was provided by percussionist James Blades, hitting a 30-inch Chinese tam tam drum.

William Thomas Wells was born at 250 Cable Street on 31 August 1889, the eldest of five brothers and one of nine altogether. His father, also William Thomas Wells, as a musician, mother Emily a laundress. After Broad Street elementary school in Shadwell, Billy headed for the nearby City where, at 12, he started work as a messenger boy. Boxing had become enormously popular in the boys clubs and East End missions of the day, and in his spare time Billy proved himself a useful fighter.

Joining the Royal Artillery at 18, Billy found a natural home for his skills. He was posted to Rawalpindi and boxed successfully in divisional and All-India competitions. Promoted from Private to Bombardier (the equivalent of Corporal in infantry regiments) Billy had his fighting nickname. The army also assigned him a full time civilian coach. There would be no more square bashing and bull - Billy was a professional boxer in all but name. He was quick to see the possibilites. With boxing becoming hugely popular as a spectator sport around Europe and in the United States, Billy bought himself out of the army, headed home and launched his pro career.

First up, on 8 June 1910 came a points win over six rounds against Gunner Joe Mills. The 6ft 3in Wells, who fought at between 182 and 192lbs, moved straight on to fight Iron William Hague for the British Heavyweight title at the National Sporting Club in Covent Garden. Winning by a knockout in six, Billy became the first heavyweight to win the Lonsdale Belt. He was immediately slated to fight world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, in October 1911. It was a meteoric assent but one to be swiftly halted.

Boxing was enormously racially loaded at the time. When the black Johnson beat the white Tommy Burns to win the World Heavyweight crown in December 1908, the newspapers went in search of a ‘great white hope’ to wrest back the title. Writer Jack London, had a notorious colum in the New York Herald. His column on 27 December that year preached divisiveness if not any arguments of racial superiority, but it was typical of the tenor of the times:

“I was with Burns all the way. He was a white man and so am I. Naturally I wanted to see the white man win. Put the case to Johnson and ask him if he were the spectator at a fight between a white man and a black man which he would like to see win. Johnson’s black skin will dictate a desire parallel to the one dictated by my white skin. . . . But one thing remains. Jeffries must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove the smile from Johnson’s face.”

And so East Ender Billy Wells emerged as a Great White Hope, put up to fight Johnson in London, in October 1911. But he had fierce opponents outside the ring as well as in. One of the main obstacles was the Rev FB Meyer, a Baptist pastor and evangelist, a mainstay of the Higher Life movement and a vociferous preacher against the evils of the saloon bar, the brothel and the boxing ring, with its attendant rowdiness and betting for cash.

One of Mayer’s main beefs was the immoral amount of money boxers were getting paid - though what is a reasonable sum to allow the world heavyweight champion to punch you in the face for half an hour? Opposing those who wanted a black-white scrap were those who abhorred fighting between the races. This curious coalition of naysayers won the day, and home secretary Winston Churchill banned the fight. nstead, in December 1911, Billy fought Fred Storbeck at Covent Garden for the British Empire Heavyweight Title, putting him down in the 11th. That same year, he published ‘Modern Boxing: A Practical Guide to Present Day Methods’ and a year later he would marry Ellen Kilroy. Together the couple would have five children.

And there was fight after fight. In 1913, Wells twice fought Frenchman Georges Caprentier for the European title, and was twice knocked down. And Wells would repeatedly and successfully defend his British Heavyweight title, some 14 times in total.

Taking a break from boxing to enlist again during the First World War, Billy won a promotion from Bombardier to Sergeant, and was sent to France to organise PT for the troops. Returning to Civvy Street, Billy re-entered the ring, but as he approached 30 it was clear that his best days were behind him. He eventually lost his British crown in 1919, when he was knocked down by Joe Beckett in a bout at Holborn. Beckett thus scooped all Billy’s titles. Five more wins in the space of a year (a workrate no pro would attempt today) convinced Billy he could come back. But a rematch at Kensington Olympia in May 1920 saw Billy stopped in the third. There were eight more bouts, with the win rate steeply dropping, before Billy called it a day in 1925.

And unlike so many boxers, Billy managed to make a career for himself after his days in the ring. He put his name to another book, Physical energy: Showing how physical and mental energy may be developed by means of the practice of boxing. And there were bit parts in movies from as early as 1916 (when he featured as himself in Kent, the Fighting Man, led to … well more bit parts, but a steady flow of them, right up to a not very good version of The Beggar’s Opera in 1953. Laurence Olivier was Captain MacHeath, Hugh Griffith the Beggar, and Billy was the hangman. A face knocked about in the ring made him perfect for minor character parts - a publican in We’ll Smile Again (1942), a commissionaire in Concerning Mr Martin (1937), a boxing referree in Broken Blossoms (1936), a detective in Old Mother Riley (1943).
And when Billy died in Ealing in 1967, at the age of 77, he left a remarkable record behind him. 52 fights, 41 wins and 34 of them by knockout.

So the Ashes are lost once again, as an unstoppable Aussie cricket team steamrollers England … again. But though the official history of Test cricket in England stretches back to September 1880 - when England beat Australia by five wickets at the Oval and with WG Grace scoring a hundred on his Test debut – the real history of the meetings dates back a dozen years before that.

Unlike the Pontings, Waughs, Warnes and Gilchrists though, these early visitors weren’t the Anglo-Saxon descendants of English and Irish settlers to Australia. The first Aussie tourists were Australian Aborigines. Before the tour was over one of them would be dead – a victim of the unfamiliar London weather – and buried in Bethnal Green. Unsung at Lords or the Gabba, he is remembered by a single eucalyptus tree planted in Meath Gardens.

When the cricketers disembarked at Gravesend on 13 May 1868 it was after a gruelling three-month voyage from Sydney. They had even had to be smuggled out of Australia. When it became public that a group of white businessmen were planning on taking an Aboriginal team to England the Victorian government - which had set up an Aborigines Protection Board in 1862 - did everything it could to stop it. Members warned that the long trip, the cold weather and the likely exposure to alcohol could have disastrous consequences for the players. So under the pretence of their being taken on a fishing trip the team met a steamer off the Victoria coast.

Reaction in England was mixed. The Times sniffily described the tourists as “a travestie upon cricketing at Lord’s”, and described the men as “the conquered natives of a convict colony”. The Daily Telegraph didn’t think much of Australia full stop. “Nothing of interest comes from there except gold nuggets and black cricketers,” it declared.

But the Aussies skill and athleticism won many admirers, as they criss-crossed England in their frantic itinerary, playing 47 matches and taking the field for 99 days of a possible 126. “They throw in very well indeed, making the ball whizz along at a great pace,” reported the Sporting Gazette. The Sheffield Telegraph called the tour “the event of the century”, and Reynolds News described the games as marking “a new epoch in the history of cricket”.

The team came from Edenhope in western Victoria, and owed their successes to sharp hand-eye co-ordination that put their white opponents to shame – the fielding and bowling particularly caught the eye of the fans. They wore white flannels and red shirts, and blue caps, each with a boomerang and cricket bat motif above the peak. And as a concession to a sheltered Anglo-Saxon audience (who believed they would be unable to tell black faces apart) each player had to wear a different-coloured sash. There was more. The English spectators wouldn’t even attempt to get to grips with the players’ aboriginal names, so they were given childlike nicknames to make it easy for the crowd. Bullchanach became Bullocky; Jumgumjenanuke Dick-a-Dick; Brimbunyah Redcap and so on. And Bripumyarrimin, who was soon to succumb to tuberculosis, was re-dubbed King Cole.

The eleven played the MCC at Lord’s on 12 and 13 June, 1868. MCC batted first with Aussie all-rounder Johnny Mullagh taking 5-82 off 45 overs. He bowled the Earl of Coventry, knocking out his off-stump. He took the top England scorer, Richard Fitzgerald, who made 50. MCC amassed 164 and the Australians outbatted them with a first innings total of 185 Johnny Mullagh getting 75 and Lawrence 25. The English press could no longer mock the visitors.

And there was more. At the close of the first day’s play, Dick-a-Dick caused a sensation by inviting members to pay up to a shilling for the chance to try to hit him with a cricket ball from 10 paces. Dick-a-Dick protected himself with a parrying shield. At Lord’s the members threw themselves enthusiastically into the test. Cricket balls rained on Dick-a-Dick for more than an hour, but not one found its mark.

And one young player was watching the Aborigines with a keen eye. WG Grace, then just 20, went to Lord’s fresh from scoring the first pair of hundreds in a first-class match and was fascinated by their athleticism and enthusiasm. He challenged them to the long throw. Mullagh managed 104 yards and Dick-a-Dick 107 yards, but Grace outdid them with 116, 117 and 118 yards.

Back at the cricket, MCC eventually won the match, but not before Johnny Cuzens put in a bowling performance of 6-65 in the MCC second innings.

Sadly it was to be King Cole’s last match. Much weakened by his disease he died at Guy’s Hospital on 24 June, 1868 - 11 days after the match ended. He was buried in Victoria Park Cemetery, later to become Meath Gardens.

People often talk about larger than life figures in football. But the tragic death of goalkeeper Les Sealey a week ago has robbed English soccer of one of its true characters. He was a highly motivated and hard-working footballer … with the touch of madness all keepers need.

“He was superb in the dressing room, very popular with his team-mates and worked tremendously hard in training,” recalls his boss at Luton, David Pleat. Sir Alex Ferguson goes even further, reckoning he won his place in Manchester United’s 1990 Cup Final on personality alone. And West Ham managing director paid tribute to the “energy and enthusiasm” Les brought to the West Ham bench on match days. Any fan who saw him running up and down the touchline screaming instructions would back that one up!

Les was born on September 29 1957 in Bethnal Green. Growing up a mad Hammers fan, his dream was to play at Upton Park, but it wasn’t to be, and in 1976 he joined Coventry as a 21-year-old apprentice. In 1983, after making 178 appearances for the Sky Blues, Les moved on to Luton, then in the old First Division, for a fee of £100,000. It was to be the start of an itinerant footballing career that would see him hit the European heights with Manchester United.
European glory seemed a long way distant when he joined lowly Plymouth on loan in 1984 though. After six first team appearances he returned to Luton. In 1988 he missed the Hatters’ League Cup final triumph at Wembley where Luton beat Arsenal 3-2.
The next year Luton returned to Wembley to defend the League Cup. Les got the call this time, but his side lost 3-1 to Brian Clough’s League Cup specialists, Nottingham Forest.
But Les’s Cup misery was to be turned on its head in a shock move in 1990. He joined Manchester United on loan in March and Alex Ferguson gave him two first-team matches before signing him on a free transfer.

These were dark days for Ferguson. After his domestic and European successes with Aberdeen, he had taken over at Manchester United in 1986. He was still looking for his first trophy, and under pressure of the sack, when United faced Crystal Palace in the 1990 Cup final.
Palace squeezed a 3-3 draw. And Jim Leighton, the Scotland keeper who Fergie had brought south with him, was at fault for at least one of the goals.
Walking into the Wembley dressing room after the match, the boss saw Leighton with his head slumped over his knees.
“It was then that I knew he had to be left out of the replay,” Ferguson said later. Dramatically and brutally Fergie dropped the Scotland international and threw Les into the replay.
“Was he a better keeper than Jim? No, but he thought he was, and that can sometimes be important,” he revealed. “Les Sealey was cocky and sometimes downright arrogant, so I did not foresee a failure of his nerve at Wembley.”
United won the replay 1-0 and Leighton’s United first team career was over. But if Les had unshakeable self-belief he also had humility. He offered Leighton his FA Cup winners medal after the game but Leighton declined it. Hurt by the psychological damage done to Leighton, Les also sent back the medal sent by the FA to mark his participation in the first game.
Sealey kept his place in the team for the next season, and even managed to better his cup-winning exploits. He played in goal in the 1991 Cup Winners’ Cup final in Rotterdam, as United beat Barcelona. He was to finish the match limping badly after suffering a leg injury in a collision. But he wasn’t to be denied the satisfaction of finishing the match, angrily waving away physio Jim McGregor as he attempted to give him treatment!
The next season Peter Schmeichel joined United, and Sealey was off on his travels once more. In July 1991 he moved to Aston Villa after making 44 first-team appearances for United. Then in 1992 he returned to Highfield Road on loan, making two appearances for Coventry. The tour of the Midlands continued in that year when he went to Birmingham on loan, playing 12 games.
Over the next few years he coached at Old Trafford, played for Blackpool, Bury and Leyton Orient and had two stints on the West Ham coaching staff.
Having finally made it to Upton Park he even got the opportunity to play for the team he had always supported. Ironically, one of those was up front, when an injury-hit Harry Redknapp threw him on as a makeshift striker.
Les left the Upton Park coaching staff this summer, along with Harry Redknapp and Frank Lampard. But the Sealey dynasty lives on at the Boleyn Ground. Les’s uncle, Alan Sealey played outside right when the Hammers beat 1860 Munich in the 1965 Cup Winners Cup Final at Wembley, scoring both West Ham goals.
And Les’s two sons, George and Joe, both goalkeepers, are both on West Ham’s books.

Les Sealey born 29 September 1957, died 19 August 2001. Leaves wife Elaine and sons George and Joe.

As our Olympians prepare for another assault on the medals, the thoughts of one East End hero will be racing back 44 years to another Australian Olym-piad, and the winning of a precious gold medal.
Terry Spinks was the babyfaced boxing hero of the 1956 Games in Melbourne. Just 18-years-old when he boarded the plane for the Olympics he looked ten years younger, but the unrumpled boyish features belied the courage and skill of a lion.
Gold medals are always hard to come by, but in ‘56, the British fight game was on a starvation diet. Thirty-two long years had passed since a UK fighter had come out on top in an Olympiad, and Terry nearly didn’t make the cut.
It was a late call-up to the team – just days before, Terry had been emptying bins in Albert Docks. But he’d kept himself fit and ready, and he got the call he’d been praying for while he was training in his West Ham gym.
The flyweight had to win four fights before he made the final, against the Romanian champ Mircea Dobrescu. A mix of speed, skill and all the power his eight-stone frame could summon up saw Terry lift the gold, as fellow Olympic champions Gillian Sheen, Judy Grinham and Chris Brasher looked on.
Back home, Canning Town was awash in Union Jacks, and the Spinks family were the surprised and delighted recipients of a case of Champagne, sent by Prince Philip. The rarity of the moment made it all the more precious.
Terry was joined by Dick McTaggart, as Olympic lightweight champion, but it was another 12 years before Britain tasted victory again, when Chris Finnegan lifted Gold at the 1968 Games in Mexico. Mixed fortunes followed for Terry. He was the toast of the East End and was photographed with the Kray Twins – ex-boxers themselves and huge fans of the fight game. Spinks played down the gangland association. “I was popular, they were popular and they wanted to be seen with me, there was nothing more than that to it,” he said.

But though Terry’s link with crime amounted to no more than a handshake and a photo, many feel that the publicity did him no favours. His cousin Rosemary has been running a campaign to win an MBE for the ex-boxer - but while Finnegan and McTaggart were honoured, Terry was left aside.
“Family and friends have racked their brains trying to come up with an explanation,” says Rosemary. “I once thought the fact Terry had been photographed with the Kray twins may have gone against him.
“Terry has never been in trouble in his life and I think it is disgraceful how he’s been treated.”
Fellow hero Finnegan has added his weight to the campaign, saying: “I was awarded the MBE only a few months after I’d won my gold – and the day I went to the Palace to collect it is one of the highlights of my life.
“It is diabolical that Terry has been left out and I would do anything to help right this wrong. I can’t understand why the authorities have insulted a great champion like this.
“After 44 years it is about time this matter was sorted out and Terry gets what he deserves.”
Terry never became bitter, though he took some hard punches. Two marriages collapsed as the boxer turned publican developed drink problems, and in 1994 he was taken to hospital. Alcohol was killing him, and cousin Rosemary decided to take care of him.
Terry still has his medal, but is still waiting for that call from the Palace. So as you enjoy the action from Sydney, think about a great East End Olympian who hasn’t received his due. And if you want to do something about it, write a letter to your MP, or Sports Minister Kate Hoey.

There can’t be many more fervent hotbeds of football than the East End, and Tower Hamlets has certainly produced more than its fair share of soccer talent.
Yet it’s an irony that though the borough gave birth to two of the oldest and established football league teams, nowadays both play outside the area.
West Ham United have been gone for the best part of a century. Millwall, meanwhile, were still local lads until 1910, when they left the Isle of Dogs for a new home south of the river.
But while they may have a reputation for hard-battling football on the pitch, it goes hand-in-hand with an unfortunate reputation for crowd trouble off it – and it’s a reputation that has existed for almost as long as the club itself.
Like many of the early league teams, Millwall started off as a works side, giving the employees of JT Morton’s jam and marmalade works a welcome dose of exercise.
When the club was formed in 1885 the company’s works, in West Ferry Road, on the Isle of Dogs, was still a new operation.
Millwall Dock, at the southern end of the island, had only opened in 1864 – before that Millwall was a remote and unpopulated part of London.
But very soon the area was firmly industrial and populated with immigrant labour.
Nearly all of the workers at Morton’s were Scottish immigrants. In honour of their homeland they adopted the blue and white of the Scots flag as their team colours, and took the lion rampant of their country’s flag as their symbol. The football club they set up was called Millwall Rovers.
And the team had a ready-made fan base, in the thousands of men and boys who poured onto the island to work in the new docks. The uncompromising play of the Scots and the no-nonsense demands of the fans made Millwall a fearsome place to visit.
Things started badly though. The first ever fixture, on October 3, 1885, was against Fillebrook, from Leyton. Millwall lost 5-0.

The side gradually improved joining the old Southern League, and reaching the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 1903, losing 3-0 to Derby County in front of 45,000 fans at Villa Park.
Having gone through a name change to Millwall Athletic, they now became plain Millwall FC and played on a number of sites on the Isle of Dogs before moving to The Den at New Cross in 1910.
The 1930s and 40s saw huge gates of 40,000 plus, and the noise of the crowd saw The Den became one of the most feared grounds in the country. Cold Blow Lane was closed on a number of occasions as violence spilled on to the pitch and the streets around.
The decades since have seen the Lions yo-yoing up and down through the divisions, at one point becoming founder members of the old Fourth (now Third Division) by virtue of a relegation!
Current Spurs boss George Graham took over in 1982, and handed a debut to the young Teddy Sheringham. Graham guided the club back up to the Second Division, before leaving for Arsenal.
New boss John Docherty led Millwall to the Second Division championship in 1988 and First Division football for the first time in the club’s history.
Sheringham and Tony Cascarino scored the goals that put Millwall on top of the league, hitting the heights with a 3-2 win over QPR at The Den on October 1, 1988.
For the fans it seemed too good to be true. Sadly it was. Millwall finished tenth that season and, the following year, the rot set in. After briefly topping the table again, the Lions failed to win any of their last 20 games, and were relegated.
The subsequent years have been traumatic for Millwall – moving grounds, seeing a bewildering succession of bosses and currently sitting in Division Two.
But as a new season gets under way, the fans can dream about 40,000 crowds and topping the table.

It may have been a long time coming – 102 years, to be precise – but Britain at last has an undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion.
The political and financial machinations of larger-than-life promoter Don King and governing body the IBF have agreed to give Lennox Lewis the honour of being the first holder of every version of the world heavyweight crown since 1992 – Brits Frank Bruno and Herbie Hide have held the WBC and WBO versions of the belt in that time. But, for now at least, an east London man is champion of the boxing world once again.
True Brit grit?
There are some who might challenge Lewis’ cockney credentials, as happened with the last man to be an undisputed English champion of the world. Bob Fitzimmons, who held the title in 1897, may have been born in Cornwall, but he was raised in New Zealand, did most of his early fighting in Australia and was twice crowned as an American world champion.
Lennox was born and raised in Stratford and professes a lifelong allegiance to West Ham United. Although his accent owes a little more to North America than east London, his career as a winning fighter puts him in a great East End tradition – of cockney kids using the ring to make their fame, if not their fortune.
Go to Paradise Row in Bethnal Green and you’ll see a blue plaque to the memory of Daniel Mendoza. Mendoza the Jew, as he was known, was English bareknuckle boxing champion from 1794
to 1795. With bouts lasting until one of the contenders dropped – often several hours – long reigns as champ weren’t common.
The East End doesn’t breed too many boxers the size of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield or even Mendoza – it’s at the lighter weights that most of our lads have won their world crowns.
He ain’t heavy
Gershon Mendeloff was born in Whitechapel on 24 October 1894, but it was as Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis that he held
the world welterweight title between 1915 and 1916. Lewis fought an extraordinary 279 bouts in a career stretching from 1909 to 1929.

Lewis was a graduate of Premierland, a boxing hall just off the Commercial Road. This Aldgate hall was the training ground of another two world champions. Teddy Baldock was a Premierland bantamweight, who in 1927 beat Archie Bell in London to claim the vacant British and World titles.
The third graduate was another Jewish East Ender, Jack ‘Kid’ Berg, the Whitechapel Whirlwind. Berg wasn’t considered much of a contender when he burst onto the American fight scene on 31 May 1928. The little fighter, born Judah Bergman, was considered cannon fodder for Pedro Amador’s junior welterweight world title bout.
But instead of the upright stance, limited movement and china chin of the classic British fighter, the Yanks were shocked as the whirling dervish – his range and angle of delivery of punches made him the Naseem Hamed of his day – dumped Amador on the canvas.
Berg powered through the division, fighting almost
weekly, only failing when he tried to step up to the more moneyed lightweight crown, against Billy Petrolle. But though he took a beating against Petrolle, he fought on for another decade and died at the ripe old age of 82 in 1991.
Take a look at Charlie Magri’s birth certificate and you’ll see July 20, 1956, Tunis, Tunisia. But Magri was a Bethnal Green fighter through and through, honing his speed and skills as a flyweight at numerous York Hall bouts from 1977 onwards.
By 1979 he was European champion and four years later he landed the WBC world crown, defeating Eleoncio Mercedes in London.

Exactly a century ago, a wealthy East End shipbuilder made an investment in a new sports ground for his works’ football team.
For Arnold Hills, it was another gambit in his long campaign to keep his workers away from the bottle and engage them in healthy outdoor pursuits. For the team, it was the first step that would take them to world fame and cup-winning glory.
When Hills’ father Frank Hills bought the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1880, he took on a going concern – but one with a decidedly mixed pedigree.
The technology of iron and steel building was one of the new marvels of the science-obsessed 19th Century, and engineers everywhere were pushing back the boundaries.
Thames Ironworks was at the forefront, building the Warrior, the world’s first iron warship at its Orchard Road works in Blackwall in 1859.
But the launch of another battleship, the Albion, was less happy. Launches regularly drew huge crowds and the company constructed a vast grandstand to hold the throng. The Ironworks’ engineering skills let it down, literally, as the grandstand collapsed killing 200 people.
The company’s reputation was shot and, in 1880, the Hills family took over an ailing giant.
It was always an uphill struggle. Arnold Hills was determined to keep his 6,000 men in jobs and maintained the yard at Blackwall when a move downstream to Tilbury would have made more economic sense.
At the same time, the Thames industry was under increasing attack from bigger firms on the Clyde, Tyne and Mersey.
But Hills was no mere money man. Like many Victorian businessmen, he was a patrician with his workers’ welfare at heart.
He lived among them, in East India Dock Road and, after his short walk home, would spend evenings dreaming up schemes for their education and moral well-being.

The vegetarian Christian encouraged all his men to “sign the pledge”, to renounce the booze, but he knew that wasn’t enough. He had to give them a counter-attraction to keep them out of the pubs.
So in 1895, he founded Thames Ironworks Football Team.
The Football League had recently been founded and the game was quickly becoming a huge working-class sport.
The team quickly took off — so much that in 1897 Hills paid out for a new stadium at the Memorial Ground, which boasted a grandstand and hosted athletics and cycling meets as well as soccer.
Meanwhile, the shipyard was in trouble. And its swansong was also the end of the Thames as a shipbuilding river – in 1911, the Ironworks built the Thunderer, the last ship ever to be constructed on the capital’s great waterway.
Ironically, as the Ironworks itself foundered under the weight of competition, its offspring team went from strength to strength.
In 1900, the team were elected to the Southern League and became a Limited Liability Company in their own right — severing their links with Thames Ironworks.
And in 1904, under the new name of West Ham United, they moved to their present home in Upton Park.
Arnold Hills died in 1927. His legacy to the people of Blackwall was certainly very different to the one he planned. His ironworks couldn’t keep them in jobs — but at least he gave them their own football club to cheer.
The club’s engineering roots are remembered in the two crossed hammers on their crest. And that is why to this day you will hear the crowds at Upton Park chanting “Come on you Irons”, a chant and a nickname that dates back to the great shipbuilding days of the Thames.

It’s a common complaint today that English youngsters have to join the back of the queue at big football clubs like West Ham and Chelsea – the imported talent is pinching all the best jobs. You might think it’s a modern problem, but almost a century ago London lads were having a hard time elbowing their way past foreign players – only these boys were Scottish!
The bosses of the new London clubs like Chelsea and Thames Ironworks (soon to become West Ham United) put together ready-made teams of Caledonian talent.

So great was the influence of the Scots that when one Londoner scored five goals on his Chelsea debut, the club programme described him as “living proof that to become a first-class footballer it is not necessary to be born north of the Tweed”.
That man was Bromley-by-Bow born George Hilsdon, known forever more as “Gatling Gun” in recognition of the way he rattled in the goals. George was born on August 10, 1885, in the long-since demolished Donald Street. He went to Marner Street School and was soon playing at centre-half for the school team.

He quickly moved to club football and at 19 was playing for Boleyn Castle FC, near to his family’s new home in East Ham.
Meanwhile, the newly-named West Ham United were looking to expand from their old ground in Canning Town. The Boleyn ground was ideal and, as part of the deal, the club took on Boleyn Castle FC as their reserve team. George signed for West Ham and, in 1905, was in the side that held Woolwich Arsenal to a draw in the FA Cup.

But it was joining Chelsea for the 1906-07 season that really kicked off George’s career. That sensational five-goal debut has never been equalled in English football – and it was another 50 years before a Chelsea player again hit five in a match. That player was Jimmy Greaves, but even Greavsie never hit six, as Gatling Gun did a few months later against Worksop. George scored 27 times that season and earned Chelsea promotion in their first year of professional football – he’d really earned his £4 a week wages.

England caps soon followed, with George scoring three times in a 6-0 rout of the Irish League before going on to score 13 times in just eight international games. Back at Upton Park in 1912, George found himself playing alongside home-grown talent. The “old international” as he was known – though he was still just 27 – was credited with bringing on the young Syd Puddefoot, one of the greatest strikers ever to pull on the claret-and-blue.

But the Great War was looming and though George tried to avoid active service – being caught by the police hiding in a chicken run on one occasion – he was called up. In the words of his son, he “copped the mustard gas at Arras” and would never be quite the same again. George scraped a living as a teaboy on building sites, ran a pub and, on occasion, organised a dodgy raffle round East End boozers – Mrs Hilsdon always won. He died in Leicester in 1941 and only four people came to the funeral. No stone marks his grave, neither is there a plaque to mark his achievements. Only the record books stand testament to the power of Bromley’s Gatling Gun.

Gatling Gun George Hilsdon, by Colm Kerrigan is out now. Published by Football Lives, 4 Earlham Grove, London E7 9AB, price £5.75. ISBN 0-9530718-0-4.

Basketball is, today, one of the world’s most popular sports. Michael Jordan, Glen Rice and Shaq are household names and, from their London Arena base, the Leopards are winning games and fans as one of the fastest growing teams in Britain. But 70 years ago the game was very different. It was American, it was small time – and it was white. The reason basketball evolved into the billion-dollar business of today was a young Jewish lad from Whitechapel with a big cigar and bigger ideas.

Abe Saperstein’s parents left Whitechapel in the early 1900s looking for a new life and fortune in the New World, taking their four-year-old boy with them. But it was Abe who was to make the fortune. In 1927 Abe was 24 and living in Chicago when he noticed the opportunity he’d been waiting for. In those days, black players weren’t allowed in the professional basketball leagues, they had to play in separate “junior” leagues. When Abe’s local black team, the Savoy Fives, broke up, he took them over. Abe’s idea was that the team wouldn’t play the small leagues, with their limited market, but go out on the road, play one-off exhibition matches followed by a challenge match against a local amateur white team. It was a winning formula – each match was a novelty that would pull big crowds, and the black-white clash added an extra edge in the often segregated American towns. The Harlem Globetrotters were on their way.

Of course they weren’t from Harlem, but that was the black centre of New York, and added to the image. The band travelled in a Stars and Stripes painted bus, they adopted the theme song Sweet Georgia Brown and, playing exhibition matches between their own two teams, they had plenty of opportunity to develop their jokey style and trick shots. The last part of the mix was a happy accident. During a game a player managed to set his vest on fire and, grabbing a bucket of water, he put it out. The crowd loved it, and Abe ensured clowning was worked into the act. By the 1960s the Globetrotters were literally that and were hugely popular all over the world. They went on to have two audiences with the Pope and visited the White House to be made “Ambassadors of Goodwill” by President Ford.

The Globetrotters were huge in Britain, filling Wembley again and again. And before his death in 1966, Abe returned to his native Whitechapel and, ever the showman, was photographed leaning on a Rolls Royce and toting his trademark Havana. The monster he had created rolled on without him – 250 shows a year at its peak, but the game had changed. By the late 1970s the pro leagues, no longer segregated thanks to Abe, were fast catching the traditional American sports of gridiron and baseball in popularity. TV was making the teams world famous and the biggest stars – thanks to Abe – were black. The Globetrotters had become a novelty act and no longer lured the best players. All the tricks they had pioneered were being outdone in the regular leagues, where stars like Michael Jordan would soon command salaries of 20million dollars a year.

They last visited London in 1991. It was a fitting tribute to Abe that their last game should be in the East End. – and they said goodbye to English basketball at the London Arena, soon to be home to the Leopards. The ‘Trotters day was over, but another chapter was just beginning.

Since this piece was written in 1997, the Globetrotters have been reborn! Visit the official website of the Harlem Globetrotters.