JULY RIP

Nice read from a few years ago.
RIP
The Forgotten Commonwealth Champion
ferret5th September 2014





Every year thousands of people, armed with flip-flops, tanning lotion and expensive cameras, flock to Bridlington to escape the stresses of their everyday lives and take in the intoxicating holiday atmosphere.

As you walk through the bustling town centre, you hear the joyful melodies of fruit machines bursting through the doors of the many amusement arcades. You see excited children running, shouting and singing with their happy, holidaying families. And, every now and then, you have to fend off an angry and hungry seagull that cheekily attempts to steal your fish and chips.

The nightlife is hectic and, for the most-part, merry. The countless holidaymakers visit the local pubs and clubs to socialise with the locals as if they are long lost friends. The sound of have-a-go pop stars wailing away in the karaoke bars echoes through the streets as the crowds float from one watering hole to the next.

If you are a boxing fan, however, there is only one pub in Bridlington for you. The Kings Arms on King Street is the place all fight fans must visit.

The small and welcoming bar, with walls that are adorned with boxing memorabilia, is the home and livelihood of a gentle giant named Roger Tighe – the same Roger Tighe who travelled to Kingston, Jamaica in 1966 and won the light heavyweight gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.

The priceless medal hangs proudly behind the bar for all to see, and it tells the story of a champion. It serves as inspiration to the souls who are lost in a world of dilemma and misfortune. It gives them hope and tells them that anybody can succeed – no matter who you are or where you come from.

Throughout history there have been a lot of famous people, from all sorts of professions, associated with Bridlington.

For instance, Cecil Burton, who was once the captain of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, was born in this small seaside town in 1887, as was his younger brother, Claude, who also represented the White Rose County at Headingley.

Mark Herman is a renowned film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing the award winning ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ (starring Asa Butterfield) and other movies such as; Brassed Off (starring Ewan McGregor), Little Voice (starring Sir Michael Caine) and Hope Springs (starring Colin Firth). Herman was born here and attended Bridlington School.

And Richard Cresswell, who has played football for teams like; Leicester City, Leeds United, Stoke City and Sheffield United was also born and raised in the popular Yorkshire Coast destination of choice.

Roger is a remarkable character in his own right. He is an old school warrior. He is charismatic, charming and honourable. He is a true gentleman.

His chiseled features illuminate the face of a fighter, but his eyes are warm and welcoming. He has the large and sturdy frame of a heavyweight fighter and his enormous hands show the wear and tear of years of punishment.

It has been said that you can tell a lot about a man by his handshake. Well, Roger almost crushed my minuscule paw the first time we met.

My first impression of the man was, “WOW this bloke is huge – and I think he has just crushed my hand.” His deep voice and confident persona made him seem ginormous and intimidating, but his cheerful and helpful attitude instantly comforted me.

At 70-years-old, the longtime landlord and boxing veteran is always happy to share his fascinating memories of the ring with anybody who shows an interest.

One Saturday night, a few years ago, I sat with Roger and his son, Dave, and enjoyed their company over a few refreshing beers. Just like the beer, the conversation was both quenching and moreish.

During that unforgettable meeting, he told me a special story about his professional debut at the Kings Hall in Manchester.

The man in the opposite corner was a very tough and rugged man by the name of Obe Hepburn. After six rounds, Roger had earned a hard fought, yet comfortable points decision to start his journey as a prizefighter.

Although there was nothing mesmerising about the action or the result from his first outing in the paid ranks, the Hull-born pug beamed with pride as he recalled who was watching on from ringside.

Joe ‘The Brown Bomber’ Louis, the former heavyweight champion of the world, was one of the finest boxers ever to lace up a pair of gloves and he was in England to watch the young Yorkshireman fight.

After 25 fights without a vest, Roger had amassed an impressive record of 20(10)-3-2. He had travelled to Sweden to square off with Ray Patterson (brother of Floyd Patterson), he had knocked out the brilliant Bunny Johnson and outpointed him in a rematch, and he had gone to Gauteng, Johannesburg and knocked out the South African champion, Japie Pretorious. He had also avenged his maiden defeat to George Dulaire on two occasions.

Another time that I had the fortune to share a swift half with Roger, he gave me a captivating narrative of his time in Sweden.

The promoter of the show, whose name escapes me, arranged for a car to collect him from the airport and transport him to the hotel. Driving the car was Ingemar Johansson, who greeted the Englishman with a firm and warm handshake. Having placed his belongings in the trunk of the vehicle, a lethargic Roger climbed onto the backseat to discover yet another passenger. The third man was Floyd Patterson. Between 1959 and 1962, Johansson and Patterson went to war three times and there they were sharing a ride and enjoying one another’s company.

Despite Tighe’s obvious talent, fighting spirit and his success against solid opposition, legendary Merthyr Tydfil manager/promotor, Eddie Thomas, never managed to secure the heavy handed southpaw a title shot at either light heavyweight or heavyweight.

Perhaps Thomas was too busy with the likes of Howard Winstone and Ken Buchanan, both of whom went on to win world honours, to be running around in search of big fights for Tighe. Or maybe there simply wasn’t a champion willing to take on a 6′ 2″ southpaw with long arms, silky boxing skills and pop in his punches.

Upon realising that he wasn’t going to be rewarded with the big title fight that he so desperately craved, and deserved for that matter, Roger became disillusioned and relinquished the burning hunger that had driven him since his fruitful days in the amateur code.

After a year away from the ring, the loveable doorman assumed his role as a journeyman in 1970 in Bilbao, Spain against Gregorio Peralta. Peralta was the first man who ever lasted long enough to hear the final bell against the formidable George Foreman.

The Englishman gave his all that night, but it wasn’t enough and he was stopped in the eighth round of a scheduled ten.

Tighe also shared a ring with Richard Dunn, whom he lost to via a tight points decision. The Bradford man went on to win British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles, as well as challenging Muhammad Ali for the world title.

Roger went on to suffer defeats in eight of his last ten contests, with his final victory coming in February of 1972, when he knocked out Dennis Avoth. His final record was 21(13)-13(3)-3.

He had the potential to win professional titles, at least on the domestic scene, but it never worked out and he never got the lucky breaks. As is the case in life, no matter how good you are or how many qualifications you have, you still need Lady Luck to smile at you every once in a while.

Nevertheless, Roger can look back on his career with immense pride due to the way he conducted himself, as well as his successes as a young amateur boxer.

It was in the unpaid ranks where Tighe made a name for himself.

“I’ll always remember Roger. He was a class boxer, he had good body strength, he could punch a bit and he could hold a shot. He was very capable. Anybody who was going to box Roger Tighe had to be at their best to beat him.

“We all have a few regrets about our pro careers, but he was a very good amateur. Whenever I used to look at the ratings, the name Roger Tighe was always right up there. To win the Commonwealth Games gold medal is a remarkable achievement. I remember him winning the ABA’s in 1966 as well.

“He was a very, very good fighter and I’m glad I never ran into him!” Jimmy Tibbs said.

Brought up in Hull, he spent time playing Rugby and Tennis at a good standard, but he saw his future in the boxing ring.

Competing for the Hull Boys Club, Tighe won numerous regional titles during his amateur career and he was the last man standing in the 1965 Territorial Army Boxing Championship, as well as reaching the ABA semi-final.

Not content with reaching the last four of the most famous boxing competition in the country, he took himself to London’s Old Kent Road to train alongside, and spar with, Henry Cooper, at the legendary gym above the Thomas A’Beckett public house. ‘Our Enry’ was the British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion at the time and was deep into his preparations for a Highbury Stadium world title shot against the irrepressible Muhammad Ali.

After pushing himself to the limit in training camp, the lanky light heavyweight breezed to the prestigious ABA title in ’66 and scored crushing knockouts in both the semi-final and the final.

By proving himself as the best in the country, Roger secured his place on the plane to Kingston, Jamaica for the Commonwealth Games.

After receiving a bye into the semi-final, Roger comprehensively outboxed Australia’s Dennis Booth. Booth had won the Victoria State Boxing Championships six years in a row and was a very competent operator. Nevertheless, the East Yorkshireman was a class above and eased to a decision victory.

The final was a much more testing affair for the England representative, as he faced a rugged and crude Nigerian opponent named Fatai Ayinla, who forced the action with wild swings from strange angles. Roger, however, remained calm under pressure and held his tidy boxing together to once again claim a decision victory.

Ayinla went on to win the gold medal four years later in Edinburgh, and yet another silver in Christchurch in 1974.

Despite the fact that Tighe and Mark Rowe, who won the gold in the light middleweight category, had travelled almost 5000 miles to compete in the Commonwealth Games, their success was somewhat swept under the rug when the entire country came down with a serious case of football fever. The newspapers showed photographs of Sir Alf Ramsey, Sir Bobby Moore and Sir Geoff Hurst, and the man on the street only wanted to discuss our world cup winning superstars.

There was no social media or YouTube in those days, so our returning boxing champions received little attention. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and IFL-TV have turned the modern day amateur fighters into stars and they have helped the youngsters build an enormous following. But there was no such publicity for Tighe or Rowe.

Regardless of his lengthy relationship with the sport, boxing doesn’t solely define Roger Tighe. His family and his desire to provide for them are a huge part of what makes him a great man.

He once worked as a security guard for a large toy warehouse and he worked free of charge. Because Roger refused to accept money for his services, the owner would instead insist that he took toys home for his children at Christmas.

No matter what job he had to do, Roger would do it in the blink of an eye to ensure that he could put food on the table and clothes on the backs of his children.

After his retirement as a fighter, he remained involved with the sport in a training, managerial and promotional capacity, and he was in charge of the careers of almost 20 boxers. The majority of those boxers would train in the gym above the Hastings pub in Hull, the pub that Roger ran at the time.

The Tighe’s relocated to the seaside over 30 years ago. And for the next two decades, the head of the family dedicated himself to educating the local youths in the art of the sweet science. He made it his mission to keep unruly kids away from trouble.

Besides Roger’s dedication to giving something back to the sport that has taken care of him throughout his life, he has raised thousands of pounds for charity by running the London Marathon six times, and he has completed more than a dozen half marathons.

Nowadays Roger lives a quiet and settled life, whilst his grown children run the family business.

I will leave you with a fond memory, a memory that is inspirational in itself:

It was a boiling summer day and I was running late for my shift at The New Inn, so I decided to get a taxi. During the cab ride, I was complaining to myself about how tired I was and how I couldn’t be bothered for a 10 hour shift behind a bar, when I looked out of the window to see an elderly man jogging with a towel wrapped around his neck and tucked down the front of his shirt. Every 20 yards or so, the man unleashed combinations into the air. It reminded me of the Rocky Balboa training montage, except this was real life. Dripping with sweat, the man ploughed on.

The elderly man was Roger Tighe and I would eventually learn that he continued to do his roadwork every day until a couple of years ago.

 

Mona Hammond. RIP

 

James Caan RIP

 

Caan died in Los Angeles on the night of July 6, 2022. His death was announced a day later.
I just saw that.......... RIP indeed, great actor... he was 81
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Caan#Death

 

Former Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, assassinated on campaign hustings by someone using what appears to be a homemade gun.

 

RIP Shinzo Abe
former PM of Japan.

 

Great obituary
That’s a life lived RIP sonny
James Caan obituary
Superb actor whose defining role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather found echoes in his colourful personal life
Ronald Bergan
James Caan: some of The Godfather star's most memorable scenes – video
There are some film stars for whom the frisson of fame and the exultation of acting are not enough. James Caan, who has died aged 82, sought satisfaction in extreme sports, drugs and a colourful personal life. However, the many superb portrayals he gave in scores of films and TV episodes will outlive the gossip and sensational headlines.

His defining role came as Sonny Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). Caan, who was nominated for an Oscar, was perfect as the hedonistic and volatile heir apparent to the Corleone family, whose bloody ways end in his own death. The film, which points to the links between the mafia and American capitalism, portrays men such as Don Corleone (Marlon Brando), the godfather of the title, as businessmen. But Sonny, a remorselessly violent hoodlum driven by family loyalty, represented the true nature of the Corleone family.


Soon after The Godfather, Caan was wallowing in violence again as the embittered hero of Rollerball (1975). Although presented as the moral centre of the film, Caan’s character, Jonathan E, is as sadistic as everyone else around him. More violence came his way as the brutal CIA man in Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite and, in contrast, he portrayed Billy Rose, the gambling, philandering husband of Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice in Funny Lady, all in the same year.

please log in to view this image

James Caan, right, with Al Pacino, as brothers Sonny and Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972). Caan was perfect as the volatile heir apparent to the Corleone family. Photograph: Paramount Pictures/Allstar
Caan was well teamed with Geneviève Bujold in Claude Lelouch’s romance set in the US, Another Man, Another Chance (1977), and with Jane Fonda in the western Comes a Horseman (1978). The latter title chimed with Caan, who was once dubbed the Jewish cowboy because of his earlier participation in rodeos and his ownership of a stable of horses.

The film critic Pauline Kael wrote of Caan at that stage in his career that “he’s not all of a piece as a performer: he’s never quite himself – you feel he’s concealing himself rather than revealing a character”. He had then recently emerged from a messy divorce from his second wife, which may have affected his subsequent performances. In 1981, Caan’s sister Barbara, to whom he was very close and who ran his production company, died of leukaemia, aged 38. “She was my best friend, my manager,” he said. “She was the only person I was afraid of.” Then he had a motorcycle accident and his house was nearly destroyed by a landslide.

There were several flops, undeservedly in the case of Michael Mann’s Thief (1981), released as Violent Streets in the UK, and deservedly with the whimsical Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) – Caan’s attempts at comedy were slow to be appreciated. His first and last directorial effort, Hide in Plain Sight (1980), in which he starred as a man in search of his ex-wife and children, was generally given a chilly critical reception. Caan explained that “some jerk at MGM altered the movie”.

On top of this, he walked off the set of The Holcroft Covenant (1985) and was replaced by Michael Caine. A few years earlier, when he was still bankable, Caan had turned down three Oscar winners, M*A*S*H, Kramer vs Kramer (“it was such middle-class, bourgeois baloney”) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

During his fallow period between 1982 and 1987, he spent his days coaching his son Scott’s soccer and basketball teams, and his nights at the Playboy Mansion (“There were tons of girls over there and, call me sick, call me crazy, but I liked ’em!”) and taking cocaine. Although he received professional help and was cured of the addiction, he was unemployable in Hollywood.

“I hardly ever go out,” he told an interviewer in 1986. “I spend most of my time upstairs in my bedroom, wearing out one spot on the bed where I sit when I’m making phone calls.” When he had not appeared in a film for four years, people in Hollywood were beginning to ask, “What ever happened to …?”

please log in to view this image

James Caan’s comeback became entrenched with his role in Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990), in which he spends most of the movie bedridden and kept captive by his ‘No 1 fan’, played by Kathy Bates. Photograph: Cinetext/Allstar/Columbia
Then his friend Coppola gave him the lead in Gardens of Stone (1987). Finding a new gravitas, Caan was utterly convincing as a stiff-necked but compassionate army sergeant who feels that “there is nothing to win, and no way of winning it” in Vietnam. Caan’s comeback became entrenched with a difficult role in Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990) – he spends most of the movie bedridden and doped as a seriously injured writer kept captive by his “No 1 fan” (Kathy Bates, who won the best actress Oscar).

But Caan hit the headlines again in the 90s for the wrong reasons. When his brother Ronnie was held at gunpoint by gangsters, Caan enlisted the help of his mafia pal Anthony “the Animal” Fiato. Caan arranged to meet and pay the kidnappers, then arrived with Fiato and his crew with guns and baseball bats. On another occasion, the FBI intercepted a phone conversation between Fiato and Caan concerning the actor Joe Pesci. Caan asked his friend to “take care” of Pesci after learning about an unpaid $8,000 bill from Pesci’s stay at a friend’s Miami hotel.

When Ronnie Lorenzo, an LA mobster, was arrested for drug trafficking, kidnap and extortion, Caan offered his home as collateral toward the $2m bail and appeared as a character witness for his “best friend”. Caan was also the first significant film star to admit to being friends with the “Hollywood madam” Heidi Fleiss, although he said the relationship was platonic.

He was sued by a woman who claimed he had tried to strangle her. (The matter was settled out of court.) Then came the morning when he woke up in a friend’s flat to find 10 Los Angeles policemen standing over him with guns drawn. Outside, they had discovered a body of an aspiring actor, Mark Alan Schwartz, on the pavement eight storeys below. Caan was questioned for nearly 10 hours before they released him, having concluded that Schwartz had fallen while trying to break into the flat. “It was a nightmare,” Caan said. “I mean, I woke up and this whole thing had happened while I was asleep. But it sure looked really bad. I looked guilty.”

Caan survived all this to rebuild his career. Seldom unemployed, he traded happily on his 70s persona, particularly playing older and wiser versions of Sonny Corleone, either as mafia bosses, louche gamblers or businessmen with mafia connections in films such as Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), with Hugh Grant’s British art auctioneer getting mixed up with the mob, City of Ghosts (2002) and Dogville (2003).

Although Caan had all the right Italian gestures as Sonny, he was the son of Jewish parents, Sophie (nee Falkenstein) and Arthur Caan, who were refugees from Nazi Germany. He was born in the Bronx, New York, and raised in Queens, where his father was a kosher butcher. After attending various schools, he entered two universities, Michigan State University, at which he was a football hero, and Hofstra University, Long Island, but failed to graduate from either.

While studying at Hofstra, he became interested in acting and was soon taken on by the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York, where he studied under Sanford Meisner, whose technique was allied to the method. One of Caan’s fellow students was Robert Duvall, with whom he was to co-star in The Godfather, as well as in Robert Altman’s moon-landing drama, Countdown (1967), Coppola’s The Rain People (1969) and The Killer Elite.

please log in to view this image

James Caan as Billy Rose, the gambling, philandering husband of Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice in Funny Lady (1975). Photograph: Ronald Grant
In the early 60s, Caan made his off-Broadway debut in Schnitzler’s La Ronde and started to appear on television, mostly as juvenile delinquents, in series including Naked City, Route 66, The Untouchables and Dr Kildare. After an uncredited bit as a sailor with a radio in Billy Wilder’s Irma la Douce (1963), he rose to stardom remarkably quickly.

His first role was as a young thug terrorising Olivia de Havilland in Lady in a Cage (1964). Tough insouciance was his style, well suited to handsome but rather emotionless features. This cool and calculating facet of Caan’s was exploited by Howard Hawks in two movies, as a daredevil racing driver in Red Line 7000 (1965) and as the laid-back “Mississippi”, John Wayne’s gunslinging sidekick in El Dorado (1967).

In The Rain People, the first of the three films Caan made with Coppola, a certain vulnerability and warmth surfaced as he played a soft-hearted drifter. He also showed a tender side as a naive sailor who falls for a prostitute in Cinderella Liberty (1973) and in Karel Reisz’s The Gambler (1974), in which Caan, intense and sympathetic, gives one of his finest performances as a university professor addicted to gambling.

In later years, Caan was content to have the security of a popular TV series, Las Vegas (2003-07), appearing as a former CIA agent now the head of security at the fictional Montecito resort and casino. He was also willing to take supporting roles in movies such as Get Smart (2008), Mercy (2009), which was written by and starred his son Scott, Middle Men (2009), The Outsider (2014) and The Good Neighbor (2016). In Carol Morley’s Out of Blue (2018), an adaptation of Martin Amis’s 1997 novel Night Train, he was the intimidating father of a murdered astrophysicist daughter, and his movie work continued up to the time of his death.

Caan was divorced four times. He is survived by a daughter, Tara, from his first marriage, to Dee Jay Mathis; a son, Scott, from his second, to Sheila Ryan; a son, Alexander, from his third marriage, to Ingrid Hajek; and two sons, James and Jacob, from his fourth, to Linda Stokes.

James Edmund Caan, actor, born 26 March 1940; died 6 July 2022

 

Very sad RIP


I am heartbroken': Declan Donnelly says he is 'beyond devastated' as his 'darling' Roman Catholic priest brother Dermott dies aged 55 after 'collapsing' with a mystery illness

 

Sports commentator John Gwynne, 77

Probably became the voice of darts in the PDC era, after the passing of Sid Waddell.

 

Nazareth's Manny Charlton has died aged 80.

The musician formed the Scottish hard rock band in Dunfermline in 1968 with Dan McCafferty, Darrell Sweet and Peter Agnew.
And bassist Peter, 75, confirmed the news of Manny's passing to Classic Rock.

He said: "When Manny joined, he was the first guy to suggest writing songs of our own.

We’d never even thought of it ’til then, because they employed you as human jukebox. Then suddenly Zeppelin, Purple and Spooky Tooth started to appear, and a whole range of possibilities opened up."

No cause of death was given.

Nazareth had a huge hit with 'Hair of the Dog' - the title track from their 1975 album - and a cover of the ballad 'Love Hurts'.

The former was covered by Guns N' Roses on their 1993 album 'The Spaghetti Incident?', and a riff from the Beatles' 'Day Tripper' was added to the end as a joke.

Manny actually ended up working with Guns N' Roses' on 25 tracks for their 1987 LP 'Appetite for Destruction'.

And although the songs they worked on didn't make the final cut, they were later released on a deluxe reissue of the seminal album.

Manny once said of working with Axl Rose and co: “They were just a bunch of young guys living their rock’n’roll dreams and having the time of their lives.

“I never foresaw that they would become one of the biggest bands in rock history."

Manny decided to end his tenure with Nazareth in 1990, following their tour of 1989's 'Snakes ’N’ Ladders' album, the last album he featured on.

He went on to release his debut solo album 'Drool' in 1999.

His last lone record was 2016's 'Solo.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...s-Stuart-dreamed-TV-quiz-Connect-died-73.html radio2 dj.... 73

 

Ivana Trump, 73

 

Paul Ryder has died

Shaun Ryder's brother and Happy Mondays bassist Paul has died suddenly aged 58.

The musician was found dead today just hours before the band were due to play at Kubix Festival in Sunderland on Friday.

The circumstances of Paul's death are not known but MailOnline has contacted a spokesperson for more information.

Shaun, 59, and Paul were the original founders of The Happy Mondays.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62184425

 

Summer 1988 and Tony Wilson gets off the train at Driffield with a suitcase full of the new drug ecstasy, it had been hoped the band were far enough away from the Hacienda to stay off drugs, however Martin Hannett, Bez and the Happy Mondays couldn't record without them, they were soon selling E's to local squaddies and Driff Tigers or some such Urban myth. RIP Paul.