John Caldwell

Pure Genius, Pure Class, Unsurpassed!
[from the Appletree Press title Legends of Irish Boxing published by Appletree Press]

That Saturday, a crowd of 58,000 spectators had packed Belfast’s Windsor Park for the Home International match between Ireland and England – a game which the visitors won three-one with a goal from Jimmy Greaves and two from Mike O’Grady. The match only proved to be the warm-up event for the eagerly anticipated fight later that evening. The Lisburn Road that day was a sea of spectators as the end of the International signalled an exodus towards the King’s Hall.
      At that time, the rest of the world watched as events surrounding the developing Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of the Third World War. Nevertheless, Belfast, in its own indifferent way, was engrossed in the clash of its own two local boxing superpowers. The prize at stake – in theory – was a crack at Jofre for the world title and a record crowd of 15,000 were in attendance to witness a fierce and bloodthirsty encounter.
      That night has gone down in Irish sporting folklore as the greatest boxing occasion of the last century. Gilroy, the underdog, won the fight when Caldwell was forced to retire with a cut eye at the end of the ninth round. For the victor there was, however, to be no crack at the champion Jofre, only speculation of a rematch with Caldwell, which would have been a promoter’s dream. The rematch never took place as Gilroy retired from boxing after the King’s Hall clash.
      Freddie Gilroy is on the record as saying that in his view the fight was a needless one that should never have taken place. There is no doubt that the media exaggerated the occasion as a grudge match between north Belfast’s Gilroy and west Belfast’s Caldwell. For John, due to the damage his eyes received during the fight, it was a bout that signalled the waning of his career.
      “I thought truly that I was ahead when the fight was stopped, and I was definitely up for a rematch with Freddie,” he said. “I had a feeling though when I saw him afterwards that he would never fight me again and I was proved right in the end. In that fight, I suffered very severe cut eyes and after that I was always having difficulty with my eyes.”
      While Caldwell was proved correct in his belief that Gilroy would never fight him again, his own career continued. Unfortunately, his problem with cut eyes came back to haunt him just three months later, when he was forced to retire from a bout with Michel Atlan at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
      Undaunted, Caldwell won back the Commonwealth and British bantamweight titles in 1964 with a win over George Bowes at Belfast’s Ritz Cinema. A year later, with two further victories under his belt, he was forced to retire in the tenth round against Alan Rudkin in a defence of his titles.
     

The previous parts of John Caldwell's story can be read here:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 |
The final part of John Caldwell's story can be read here:
part 5 From the Appletree Press title: Legends of Irish Boxing by Barry Flynn.