ie They are  NOT coming from overseas !!

Lords of the Ring

Marsh Warren and the Business of Boxing 

- By Harry Lansdown & Alex Spillius -

Illustrated with Photographs

ISBN: 043473876X

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, London, UK 

Published: 1991

Binding: HARDcover with Dustjacket 280  pages  

Condition: UNread & displayed condition! HERE in MELBOURNE! A retired display copy as illustrated!

Edition:  FIRST EDITION: 1st printing 1991  

TIGHT,  SCARCE   HARDCOVER with Dustjacket ~  IN  MELBOURNE  ... 

WHY do ebayers buy from US?

Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item!!

Remains UNread - it was the display copy instore . It is Tight -  neat, no inscriptions or marks within. Appears as in my photos - this is the exact copy!!  A nicely preserved copy - superb!   

No discernible shelf wear, the interior is tight and spotlessly clean with 280 pages showing (expected) mild age toning. THIS copy is the FIRST EDITION: first printing from 1991 - the UK publishing by William Heinemann Ltd, London. 

There are many black and white Photos & Illustrations.

VERY VERY SCARCE title - this is a NEW, UNread copy!!

In original black cloth boards with striking silver titles HARDcover binding, in publisher's dustcovers which are in excellent, new UNclipped condition.

(Stored with 2020!)

Measures approx.  9¾  x 6¾  inches or 25  x  17cms

SYNOPSIS ....

Also published in the US under the title  Lords of the Ring: Marsh, Warren and the Business of Boxing.

Terry Marsh had found fame as the fighting fireman from Basildon. Frank Warren, Thatcherite entrepreneur, had won fortune as his manager. Together they celebrated winning the World Light-Welterweight Championship. But then things started to go wrong, culminating in a trial for attempted murder.

This incredible read examines the multi-million-pound boxing industry and, in particular, the relationship between Terry Marsh and his manager, Frank Warren. The book highlights the libel case and the trial of Marsh for attempted murder and shows the sport as struggling to maintain its integrity.

About the Author

David Poole Anderson was born in Troy, New York on May 6, 1929. At the age of 16, he was hired as a messenger by The New York Sun. He received a degree in English literature from Holy Cross College in 1951. After college, he covered the Dodgers for The Brooklyn Eagle in 1953 and 1954 and then went to The Journal-American. He became a general-assignment sportswriter for The New York Times in 1966. He began writing the Sports of The Times column five years later. He received a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1981 and the Associated Press Sports Editors' Red Smith Award in 1994 for major contributions to sports journalism. He retired from full-time column writing in 2007 but continued to contribute columns to The Times after that on a part-time basis. He wrote several books including Ringmasters: Great Boxing Trainers Talk About Their Art, Muhammad Ali, and Pennant Races: Baseball at Its Best. He died on October 4, 2018 at the age of 89.

Very  Interesting read!

Reviews

Highly recommended …  This book has some good material in it about the rise of Frank Warren as well as some of the boxing promoters of the 1950's onwards.

Overall, not a bad book but would really have liked more firsthand observations at times.

Bloodier than boxing …..    Harry Lansdown and Alex Spillius co-wrote LORDS OF THE RING: MARSH, WARREN AND THE BUSINESS OF BOXING. published by Heinemann, London, UK. 

''BOXING,'' says former boxer Gary Mason, ''is show business with blood.'' Brutal though boxing is, bloodier business occurs outside the ring. In 1965 Freddie Mills was found dead outside his Soho nightclub, a bullet fired through his right eye from a fairground rifle. The coroner's verdict was suicide, but friends and fans of Freddie were sceptical. An immensely popular and courageous man, an astute man who hated guns, a family man who left no suicide note for his wife shot himself? As Jack Solomons told Tony Van den Bergh: ''You must be joking!''

In the second part of Stallone's Rocky saga, some media monsters try to market a Rocky doll which, like its original, ''takes a terrific beating''. The same could be said of Freddie Mills whose approach to boxing was to stand up to a battering so long as he could deliver his loping left hook.

His first fight with Gus Lesnevich, which he lost, was an agonising ordeal, so much so that Mills admitted: ''After that sort of bashing a man cannot be the same again. The brain must be affected.'' Mills won the second Lesnevich fight, and the world light-heavyweight championship, in 1948 but was not the same man. Superficially, he seemed a hilariously happy fellow, a clown who got bit parts in films. Actually, he suffered from terrible headaches and a dark depression that reduced him to tears. The old cliche about the tears of a clown is apposite. Van den Bergh brings impressive credentials to his scrutiny of Mills. He was a British Board of Control inspector for both Mills-Lesnevich battles and knew Freddie well. Van den Bergh thinks boxing should be banned but does not think brain-damaging boxing, or depression, killed Mills. He blames business in Soho, first owning a Chinese restaurant then running the Freddie Mills Nite Spot with Andy Ho. It doesn't sound too dangerous until you consider that his customers included the Kray twins. Yet, for all the rumours, the Krays did not murder Mills. They were great fight fans, genuinely admiring a man tough enough to win a world title. Who dunnit then? The likeliest solution, tentatively advanced by Van den Bergh, is that a Chinese tong gang carried out the killing, furious at Freddie's rejection of their proposal to use his club as a cover for opium-peddling. Mills's widow Chrissie has always believed Freddie was murdered; Van den Bergh justifies her faith in Freddie as a man too strong for suicide. In coming to his conclusion, Van den Bergh looks thoughtfully at Freddie's life and sustains the mystery of his death to the last page. A shrewd book about a complex subject. Lords of the Ring features Terry Marsh, the business-like boxer, and Frank Warren, the combative businessman. Once formidable partners, Warren taking Marsh to the light welterweight title of the world in 1987, they became bitter foes after Marsh revealed he had epilepsy and hinted that Warren had been in on the secret. Warren issued a libel writ, and then, in November 1989, was shot by a hooded figure who sprinted athletically away from the scene of the crime. In October 1990 Marsh went on trial, at the Old Bailey, for the attempted murder of his former manager. It is a story of contrasting characters. Warren, able to challenge the old boxing establishment with innovative promotional ideas, is interesting enough but Marsh is the main event in this book. Marsh was always more complex than your average boxer. London Schools Chess Champion at the age of 11, he left the Marines in 1981 to attend Basildon College of Further Education. Boxing while working with the Essex Fire Brigade, he gained a following as ''the fighting fireman.'' He used attrition more than aggression: cleverly confusing opponents by suddenly switching to southpaw. Marsh's intelligence provides the book with its most memorable moments. During the Old Bailey trial, the court was treated to the transcript of an interview between Detective Inspector Peter Wiggins and Marsh. Asked about his boxing career, Marsh quipped: ''I could have been a contender, Charlie.'' Asked how he reacted to the diagnosis of epilepsy, Marsh said: ''I nearly had a fit.'' Wiggins, annoyed at Marsh's jocular manner, produced one of the funniest Freudian slips on record: ''Have you finished, Mr Mask?'' Marsh quickly corrected him: ''That's Mr Marsh, not Mr Mask. Marsh with a M.A.R.S.H.'' It was a performance worthy of Marsh in the ring, outwitting an opponent. Marsh was found not guilty. Who, then, shot Frank Warren? The authors haven't a clue but state pompously that the ''story of Frank Warren and Terry Marsh did nothing to make boxing more wholesome.'' Few boxing fans will be put off by that. Like the mystery of Freddie Mills's murder (if such it be), the saga of Frank Warren's shooting will appeal to those who enjoy boxing for its vicarious violence.

Marvellous Reading!

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