The Quiet Man who appeared in a suit — He was the Real Thing!

Sometime in 1954, a well dressed booted and suited executive from the Coca-Cola Company announced that he was making a detour on his business trip. He explained to those who would listen that he wanted to break away from business to find and visit a man who he had neither seen nor spoken to for many years. There was something that he simply wanted to clear up. Given that he was an executive of the company and that he stood in a muscular 6ft 1 inch frame few were going to argue with him—besides he announced his intention with such charm and sincerity that few people would even think of standing in his way.

It was against this background, that the executive found himself in Chicago seeking out his prey. He was not difficult to find right enough, famous people rarely are, and at one point the man who was the subject of Mr Coca Cola’s search had been the most famous on the planet.

The executive stood in his suit, shirt and tie and waited for the door to open. When the door swung back on its hinges, suddenly there he was— older, fatter, out of condition, but undoubtedly the same man he had stood before all those years ago. His brown skin was mottled, his eyes a little uncertain, but still sitting clear in a head that stood on top of a large and muscular body, an inch taller than the executive.

The black man had fallen on hard times, but that did not matter as wealth was not the driving factor here, as something far more important was at stake. For the visitor, dignity and doing the right thing was the prize — a prize that no sum of money could buy.

For the man who opened the door, he simply saw a large white man in a smart suit standing in his doorway. Perhaps he was a little uncertain at first, but it was the eyes that revealed the visitors identity. You could perhaps disguise the visitor in a suit, add-on a few pounds from when they had last met, throw in a few grey hairs and so on— but those eyes would always tell him the identity of the surprise visitor standing in front of him. He had looked into those eyes long ago and would never forget them. “ Hello Joe, good to see you.” Said the visitor in heavily accented English. “ Max?” questioned the host “ Max Schmeling?” enquired Joe Louis……

And instantly the two men shook hands.

The story of Joseph Louis Barrow and Maximilian Adolph Otto Siegfried “Max” Schmeling is a well-known one — or is it?

Louis and Schmeling would meet in two famous fights in which each man could claim a single victory over the other. Each would knock the other out in sensational circumstances and each fight would be hijacked and politicised way beyond the control of the two men concerned.

Neither fighter would be able to escape the consequences of either victory or defeat as seen through the eyes of others, and both would be harassed and bullied by the very governments who lauded and praised them one moment, but who sought to humiliate and demean them the next.

In many respects their boxing “legacy” had little or nothing to do with boxing. By the time the two men first met on June 19^th 1936, Joe Louis had earned a fearful reputation being unbeaten in 28 fights. The black man who was originally from Alabama was seen as the overwhelming favourite and was on track to become the first black heavyweight champion since the controversial Jack Johnson.

Despite a widespread popularity, there were still those who were dead set against Louis in the United States because of his skin colour, and in the Southern states a fight between a black man and a white man was still illegal.

On the other hand, Schmeling was by this time seen as more of a journeyman fighter. He had been the German and European champion almost a decade before and he had held the world title between 1930 and 1932 following the disqualification of Jack Sharkey who was deemed to have hit Schmeling with a low blow in their first title fight.

After a solitary defence of the title, Schmeling would lose the crown in a rematch with Sharkey which the “Boston Gob” would win by way of a very controversial decision.

Thereafter, Schmeling’s record was up and down with a couple of wins and defeats to Max Baer who knocked him out in 1933 and a points loss to the clever Steve Hamas in 1934— although he would knock Hamas out a year later.

The fight with Baer was the first big fight promotion by Schmeling’s hero – Jack Dempsey– and it is worth noting that Dempsey had picked up a trick or two from his own former manager the wily Jack “Doc” Kearns.

Here for the first time, Schmeling was painted as “The German” Enemy or “ Maxi the Nazi” who faced Baer who was supposedly defending his Jewish faith. The bout was a raging success being voted fight of the year by ring magazine and grossed a healthy profit of over $233,000 of which Dempsey retained a significant chunk.

By 1935, world politics was seen as a good background against which to set a big boxing promotion, and so when Louis fought Italy’s “Ambling Alp” Primo Carnera in June of that year, Carnera was painted as Mussolini’s puppet – although the truth is that Carnera was much more likely to be under the control of the New York mafia than the influence of Il Duce.

So it was against this background that the 1936 fight between Louis and Schmeling took place in Yankee Stadium with a black American population totally cheering on the unbeaten champ in waiting ( with many but not all White folk sharing their enthusiasm ) and Schmeling being painted as an almost no hoper representing the Third Reich —- a regime which had done absolutely nothing by that point to proclaim Schmeling a hero.

In fact having already lost to the Jewish Baer, The German government of the day made moves to distance themselves from the unfancied Schmeling — who unknown to most Americans had already started to have run ins with the authorities in Germany.

The fight was almost ignored by the Nazi press, after Hitler privately questioned the wisdom of taking on the invincible American; but Schmeling’s shock victory led to wild celebrations in Germany. He received congratulatory cables from the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels; and also from Marlene Dietrich, by then an American exile.

For the 1936 fight, Louis wouldn’t train properly. He was cocky and sure of himself and felt Schmeling was an easy pay day. He played golf (a lifelong passion ) instead of training and did little to prepare properly. On the other hand, the 30 year old German studied Louis, detected what he thought was a weakness and set out to exploit it ruthlessly.

That weakness was that Joe was apt to drop his left hand after a jab, and so every time he saw the hand drop Schmeling unleashed a thunderous right cross to Louis’ unprotected head. In the Fourth round Louis went crashing to the floor for the first time in his professional career and in the twelfth round Schmeling knocked him out with a series of murderous blows.

Perhaps no one noticed that on immediately being declared the winner, the victorious Schmeling carried the dazed Louis back to his stool?

The differing reactions to the result could not have been starker. In New York streets black men, women and children especially wept while in Germany Hitler proclaimed Schmeling a hero and ordered that he return in triumph on the airship Hindenburg to a hero’s welcome.

By the time the two would meet again in 1938, Louis was world champion having taken the crown from “Cinderella Man” Jim Braddock in June 1937. Braddock, his handlers and the boxing authorities had refused to give Schmeling a shot at the title fearing that the Heavyweight Crown would be hijacked by Hitler and his propaganda team. Where the Third Reich had distanced themselves from Schmeling before, his victory over Louis was now proclaimed as a victory for the Aryan race and proof of the philosophies of the Nazi regime – though as we shall see the problems between Schmeling and the politicians were already growing steadily.

Louis for his part refused to recognise himself as Champion until he had avenged himself against Schmeling, and so the scene was set for the German to return to Yankee Stadium and challenge the Brown Bomber for the title.

As the politics between an ever aggressive Nazi Germany and the United States worsened, so Joe Louis and Max Schmeling were hijacked by the politics of the day. Schmeling was photographed with Hitler and his cohorts, Louis was photographed with Roosevelt. The papers absolutely heightened the tension with supposed quotes from Schmeling which he did his very best to deny. He released statements saying that while he was proud to be German he was not a Nazi— and in fact caused some ire back in his homeland when he revealed that he had steadfastly refused to join the Nazi party when asked,or was that ordered, to.

This made little difference. Joe was the humble black boy fighting for the US of A against Schmeling’s Nazi supremacist leanings irrespective of what the challenger said publicly — although there were still many in the States who wanted to cheer on Max against “Chicken eatin” Joe.

This time Joe trained and dominated his 32 year old opponent knocking him out in 240 seconds. He landed a body blow which produced an audible scream from Schmeling and within 42 blows the fight was over when the German challenger was knocked down for the third time in a round.

Louis had won this time.

Schmeling suffered broken vertebrae and was badly injured.

Max would describe the carnival scenes he had to endure in the streets when he was being driven to the hospital. There were bands playing and crowds singing in the black neighbourhoods and all shouting the name “ Joe Louis” — it was clear the bad guy had been defeated.

In fact the bad guy had been defeated before he stepped into the ring. Where ten years before Max Schmeling had enjoyed some celebrity in New York and was reported as humble, dignified and down to earth – in the days before the fight he was molested in the street by mobs who would mock him by giving him the Nazi salute, booing him and so on.

As he walked to the ring for the fight he was pelted with garbage and refuse of every description. Whilst in New York he received death threats and hate mail by the sackful. Further, his manager, Joe Jacobs, was banned from sitting in his corner— for reasons that had nothing to do with Schmeling or this fight — everything was done to upset and disrupt the challenger.

Not that it would have made any difference to the outcome.

Schmeling’s team refused Louis visiting rights at the hospital which only heightened the hatred in the streets and when he returned to Germany he was no longer lauded and praised and was seen as a national embarrassment by the Reich. Louis had won, Schmeling had lost—- and that could have been the end of the Louis Schmeling story.

Yet it wasn’t, and what’s more it was not even the beginning of the real Max Schmeling – Joe Louis story.

Years later it became clear that far from being a Nazi sympathiser, Schmeling was fighting small battles with the Third Reich throughout. Of course he was seen in pictures with the Führer — who could refuse with safety? However, away from the cameras he realised when he was being used for political purposes and when he could he used his celebrity and position to resist “requests” from the Fuhrer and his men.

For example, Schmeling had married the actress Anny Ondra in 1933. Anny was glamourous and would go on to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s first talking movie “ Blackmail”. However, she had been born in Poland and had been raised in Prague. She was not seen to be sufficiently Aryan and Schmeling was “advised” to divorce her for his own good. He refused and they remained happily married for 54 years until her death in 1987 at the age of 83.

Schmeling’s manager was Joey Jacobs. Schmeling had first come to New York in 1928 and could not get any fights until he hooked up with Jewish Jacobs who was known by his nickname “ Yussel the Muscle”. Even before his victory over Louis, Schmeling had been criticised in his native Germany for his open associations with Jews. When he returned victorious after the first Louis fight he was told to ditch Jacobs and associate with more German types — which he once again refused to do. This gave rise to the ridiculous sight after one fight in Germany where Jacobs ran into the ring after another Schmeling victory and gave the obligatory Heil Hitler salute while wearing his hat and sporting his large torpedo cigar in his mouth! To some in Authority this was seen as an outrage and an insult coming from a Jew and Schmeling had to calm the tension with the authorities.

However, after his defeat to Louis, Schmeling’s influence with the German government not only waned — it disappeared.

Unlike any other major German sportsman he was drafted into the parachute regiment and in 1941 was flown into Crete where he was severely injured in battle, and hospitalized for months. It is said that whilst in Crete he visited the allied POW camps and argued for better conditions for those who had been captured and were held prisoner.

Yet despite this, he was still officially the German and European Heavyweight champion although by this time his celebrity and fortune were gone.

After the war, Schmeling was nearly destitute and fought five more times for the money. He retired after a 10-round loss to Walter Neusel in 1948 at the age of 43 with a record of 56-10-4 with 39 knock outs.

Back in the USA Joe Louis was still world champion – a title he would defend successfully on 25 occasions though some will say that many of the defences were against what became known as “The Bum of the month” club.

He would fight throughout the war years, and would be drafted into the military though he would never see active service or anything like it. He announced his retirement from boxing whilst still champion of the world on 1^st March 1949 —- only to run headlong into the biggest fight of his life— with the United States Government.

Where he had been once lauded by that Government as the great American hero, he was now hounded due to so-called income tax arrears. He was forced to come out of retirement and fight again on the sole basis that all the purse money was to go to the tax man.

In September 1950 he challenged Ezzard Charles for his old title and was soundly beaten and eventually he fought for the very last time in what could only be described as a desperate fight against Rocky Marciano who stated openly he did not want to fight Joe and was only doing it because Joe needed the money! The outcome was inevitable, and for the first time since the first Schmeling fight Joe was knocked unconscious by the murderous Rocky.

Apparently there were tears from Sugar Ray Robinson and his handlers in his dressing room. There was an apology from Marciano. Yet Louis just shrugged it all off and went on his way. He still owed the IRS and there was no way of paying them off— Joe Louis was broke!

Back in Germany, Max Schmeling had been broke after the war too. He mounted the brief comeback mentioned above and fought a few fights purely for money whilst at the same time undergoing scrutiny for his supposed “role” in Nazi Germany.

He was cleared of any involvement with the authorities and his stock rose considerably when it was revealed that he had refused to join the Nazi party despite considerable pressure, had refused to sack his Jewish manager and had refused to divorce his Polish born wife.

After the war and after retirement, Schmeling tried his hand at a few things but on the advice of a former boxing promoter he contacted the Coca-Cola Company and bought the rights to the German bottling franchise. He set up a factory and became very successful with the most American of companies with his fortunes going from good to very good.

However, there were certain things that had always bothered him, and one of these was the publicity and propaganda surrounding the Louis fights — and Joe Louis himself.

It had often been said that insulting remarks attributed to Max and his camp before and after the 1938 fight, exacerbated by the bitter conflict between Nazi Germany and the United States, caused an estrangement between Schmeling and Joe Louis. However, some who knew Louis best, including his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., say that Joe never had any animosity toward Schmeling.

However in Schmeling’s mind there was a misunderstanding and so on that Coca Cola visit to the United States in 1954, Schmeling sought out Louis in Chicago.

In his memoirs, Max described their emotional reconciliation which was sealed with a firm handshake. Schmeling wrote that the experience was more meaningful to him than any third bout could have been and that he had to go to make sure that Joe knew that he had never meant him – or his people — any malice.

In turn, Louis would write in his autobiography “We hugged each other and now we’re real friendly and keep in touch by phone.” In fact the friendship would be kept alive by far more than telephone calls. Schmeling would visit the troubled Louis once a year and in his later years, when Louis was virtually destitute and suffering cocaine addiction problems, Schmeling would provide considerable financial and emotional assistance to his old boxing foe as the years went by.

While Schmeling prospered in Germany, Louis struggled to scrape a living in the US. At times he would be a meeter and greeter at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and at times he would appear as a professional wrestler. He would always remain vulnerable and a sad semblance of the once magnificent athlete he once was. Eventually Joe Louis died on April 12^th 1981.

Max Schmeling carried his coffin and paid for part of the funeral.

Not only that, Schmeling handed an American based friend an envelope which contained $5,000 dollars in cash with the instruction that the money had to be given in cash to Joe’s widow for maintenance. Under no circumstance was any part of the money to go to the US Government!

This would be a good story if the Max Schmeling tale ended right there — but it doesn’t.

Schmeling wrote an autobiography in which he told of his problems in Nazi Germany and in which he revealed that he was glad Joe Louis beat him in 1938. He said that had he won, Hitler would have given him a medal and he would have been held up as some kind of Aryan superman, which he was not. He was just a boxer, an athlete, not a politician and certainly no Nazi or believer in the Nazi policies.

He accepted that he was used by the party at times, and indeed allowed himself to be used if the need at times demanded it — in his opinion.

He said that had he won , and had he been feted by the Third Reich after 1938 he could have been seen as a collaborator and a war criminal and that this had always bothered him.

In the intervening years I have seen many articles which continue to portray Schmeling as a “Die Hard Nazi” an “Ardent Nazi” and as “Hitler’s Showhorse”. None make reference to his kindness to Joe Louis or the findings of the British Military investigations into the actions of Schmeling before and after the war — which investigations concluded that he was not even a member of the party and had distanced himself from the regime on numerous occasions.

However, we often hear of someone coming forward after many years to reveal the truth of a man or woman’s actions in the days of the Third Reich and the dreadful pogroms it initiated. Often as not, what is revealed is unsavoury and the lengths someone will go to distort or hide an unpalatable truth.

Earlier, in this story, I mentioned that Schmeling gave an envelope to man in 1981 to pass on to the widow of Joe Louis. That man was Henri Lewin. Henri Lewin is a name that will not be familiar to too many folk, but he was an executive for the Hilton hotel group and is hailed as one of the men who was at the forefront of creating the strip at Las Vegas Nevada. He was a worldwide hotelier with an international reputation during his lifetime. He has been hailed as an International Hotel visionary.

He was also born a German Jew.

In 1989, several years after the death of Joe Louis, Lewin invited Max Schmeling to a dinner at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas supposedly on the grounds of celebrating the former world champion’s boxing career and his great rivalry with Louis.

However, when Lewin got to his feet to speak, he revealed a story that had never been heard before. He educated his audience about Kristallnacht —  a pogrom carried out against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9th and10th November 1938,  by SA paramilitary and civilians.

German authorities looked on without intervening.

The attacks left the streets covered with broken glass from the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues. At least 91 Jews were killed in the attacks, and 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged in just 48 hours.

No event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world.

The Times wrote at the time: “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”

The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew resident in Paris.

Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany’s broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust. Few of those taken away on these dates were ever heard from again. It was both the beginning and the end of the worst of nightmares for those who were targeted.

This was just 5 months after Schmeling had lost to Louis when his stock in Nazi Germany was at an all time low. He did not enjoy favour with Hitler and his officers and the Government regime had already started to ostracize him. He was undoubtedly a man under a degree of pressure in his homeland.

Yet according to Henri Lewin, Schmeling was still a famous public figure and everyone knew his name when they saw him in the street. He was instantly recognisable.

On that night when so many disappeared, Lewin’s father sought to hide his two sons from those who would either seek to kill them or bundle them on to the trains bound for the concentration camps. Lewin senior feared for his life and that of his family and had nowhere to turn.

In desperation, he turned to a friend – Max Schmeling.

Henri Lewin described how he, aged fourteen, and his fifteen year old brother, Werner, were taken to Schmeling’s suite in the Excelsior hotel in Berlin. Schmeling hid them there for several days telling the hotel staff that he was unwell and was not to be disturbed. After a few days, Schmeling smuggled the boys out of the hotel and got them back to their parents who were also in hiding.

Thereafter he assisted the entire family in escaping to Shanghai where they were free of the Nazi threat – although they were later interned by the Japanese.

Lewin openly shed tears as he told this most unexpected of tales to an amazed audience in Las Vegas. He went on to state quite clearly that what Schmeling had done that night was an act of complete and utter treason: a complete breach of the law and policy of the Third Reich. Harbouring persons wanted by the authorities could have and should have resulted in death for the perpetrator and put simply “ He risked his life to save me, my brother and my family for no reason whatsoever other than that he knew my father.”

Schmeling himself had never discussed the Kristallnacht incident: not in the countless interviews he had given until that point, nor in his published reminiscences, not even in his defences when under enquiry about being a Nazi and his involvement in the war.

He had modestly told the Lewins that what he did for them in 1938 was the ‘duty of a man’.

Even after Lewin’s revelations he was most reluctant to talk about the episode but in 1993 he gave an interview and finally broke a silence saying “I don’t want anyone to say I was a good athlete, but worth nothing as a human being — I couldn’t bear that.”

As a result of Lewin’s speech and revelation, Schmeling later received an award from the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation for risking his life to hide the two Jewish brothers and helping their parents during Kristallnacht on Nov 9^th 1938.

Over the years, Schmeling gave hundreds of thousands if not Millions of Dollars to help the elderly and poor through the Max Schmeling Foundation. He remained a private man and in many ways shunned the limelight as the focus was always going to be the Louis fights and the propaganda that surrounded the two fighters on both sides of the Atlantic.

He did not want to be remembered for that.

Maximilian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling, boxer, born September 28 1905, died on February 2nd 2005 at the age of 99.

At his request he was buried privately with no great pomp beside Anny his wife of some 54 years. They had no children.

The German Chancellor, Michael Schumacher, The Klitschko brothers whom he helped, and many others paid tribute to his modesty and humanity. According to his good friend, German soccer great Uwe Seeler, the former boxer did pass away with one regret after all. “He absolutely wanted to live to a hundred; I would have wished him that,” Seeler said. “But he passed away peacefully in his sleep.”

He was one hell of a man!

A righteous man who fulfilled his moral duty at a time of great oppression and put himself in great danger for the benefit of innocents.

Yet to this day there are American and British reporters who still castigate him as an ardent Nazi. He came to meet Joe Louis out of the blue one day — just a quiet man in a suit. He was the real thing — and not many can say that.

I thought it was a story worth the telling.

The SFA and O.J. Simpson— Never the Twain shall meet!

Good Morning.

I wonder how often we have heard the phrase “Public Perception”? And just who decides exactly what public perception or public opinion actually is?

Perhaps it is a collective of journalists? Maybe it is a group of Editors?

Or perhaps it is whatever collective noun applies to those people who wish to manipulate the news from behind the scenes while they live in anonymity and in the shadows—often as not trying to represent the interests of their masters—whoever they may be?

If we were to go back in time to precisely 19 years to this very day, and ask the question “Who is Orenthal James Simpson?” the answer supplied by most who knew of him would have been virtually identical— certainly in the United States of America.

Most would have told you that Simpson was simply the greatest running back in the history of American Football—setting stats and records over a 14 game season that will never be beaten—American football has since changed to a 16 game season. His muscular running and O.J. initials earned him the nickname “The Juice” and he went on to have a successful movie and media career that guaranteed him an annual seven figure salary. He was the all American good looking handsome sports hero.

His perception in the public eye was virtually the same across all states, all races, all social divides. O.J. was king!

Or so it appeared.

However, all of that began to unravel nineteen years ago tomorrow — on 12^th June 1994 with the murder of his ex wife Nicole Brown Simpson and a young man who had gone to her house to return her spectacles from the restaurant where he worked as a waiter. His name was Ron Goldman.

This is not the place to examine in detail the evidence and tactics at the subsequent infamous trial, fascinating though it may be. What is worthy of note on these pages however, is the effect of the various “leaks” that were manufactured and how these may have affected public perception to this very day.

The first so called leak was the rumour put out by the Los Angeles Police department that following the murders a Ski mask had been found in the grounds of the dead woman’s house. By this time, Simpson had been arrested after a bizarre slow motion car chase where he was known to be in the back of his own car ( driven by a friend at the time ) holding a gun to his own head.

Whatever he was—Simpson was clearly troubled.

Anyway, the discovery of the Ski Mask lead to great speculation in the press that the deaths were premeditated murder and with Simpson in custody the tide of public opinion—at least as far as the press were concerned— turned steadily against him.

It was only months later, in the course of preliminary court proceedings, that the District Attorney looked the presiding judge in the eye and confirmed that there was no ski mask at all—never had been— and in a flash apologised for (ahem) anyone being misled as a result of this unfortunate and untrustworthy leak.

Next, was the public release of a taped telephone call where a clearly distraught Mrs Simpson was heard calling the police saying she was afraid of her husband! In the background, a raging, bullying, angry, violent, abusive and scary Simpson could be heard shouting, bawling, swearing and threatening his wife. The tape was released by the police to the press – without any judicial authority— together with details of a previous and uncontested conviction against Simpson which showed that he was a convicted wife beater. Further, the Police released details of several calls that they had made to the house as a result of complaints of domestic abuse and violence.

Simpson’s reputation as the All American good guy athlete was sunk—without trace — and with virtually no hope of redemption.

While this time the content of the leak was accurate—once again the District Attorney’s office had to square up to the situation and issued a heartfelt and sincere apology as the leaks prejudiced the function of, and lead to the dismissal of, a grand jury who were meant to assess if there was enough evidence to take Simpson to trial for the murder of his ex wife and Ron Goldman.

By the time the trial eventually started in the Los Angeles Court House, both prosecution and defence had spent millions of dollars and several months vetting and picking a jury of 12 men and women and a further 12 reserves. Experts for both prosecution and defence were charged with the task of assessing the jurors and getting rid of anyone who they thought would not suit their purpose or interest.

Potential jurors had to start with answering a questionnaire containing 75 separate questions and if you made it through that test then the answers to a further 30 questions awaited scrutiny and assessment. Thereafter you were questioned face to face, looked in the eye, and if you passed muster for both sides you were on the jury or a reserve.

As part of the research and preparation for jury selection, polls were taken among the general public. These showed a worrying trend in that over 70% of the black populace thought that Simpson was innocent, while almost the same percentage of White citizens thought Simpson was guilty.

Race was clearly going to be an issue.

Remember this was Los Angeles – a city with a history of racist policing and where there is a significant black population unlike Santa Monica where the murders were in fact committed.

The race issue became even clearer when the prosecution sought to rely on the testimony of Detective Mark Fuhrman, the policeman who found a blood stained glove and sock in or around the Simpson home. Allegedly the blood and the glove would match blood samples and an identical glove found at the scene of the crime, and thus would link Simpson to the murders. The problem was that it took over 2 months after Simpsons arrest for Fuhrman to reveal the significance of the items he found, and Fuhrman admitted that they were discovered irregularly—when he climbed over a wall and entered the premises to look for evidence with no search warrant or permission from anyone in authority.

Some of the blood was said to be Simpsons blood which had presumably been spilled as a result of an injury sustained by him in the course of a vicious fight at the scene of the crime.

However Simpson was able to show that within hours of the murders he had been at a photo shoot in Chicago where he had been photographed from head to toe with no sign of bruising, cuts, abrasions or any other kind of mark on his body which would suggest that he had been bleeding a little let alone profusely.

Simpson, by this time, was spending fortunes on defence lawyers with the legal bill running to $38,000 per day!

One of his star laden team, F Lee Bailey, would allege that Fuhrman was a racist and suggested quite clearly that he had planted the glove and the sock which he had deliberately smeared with blood in an attempt to frame the innocent Simpson. In some stringent cross examination, Fuhrman stood before the jury and specifically and vehemently denied that he was a racist, used the word “Nigger” or had any agenda that was anti-black. He denied that he had tried to fabricate evidence or frame the accused. He was forceful and bullish in his testimony. He looked the jury straight in the eye and said that the defence allegations were nonsense.

The defence then produced four witnesses to establish that Fuhrman had recently used the word “nigger” several times in general conversation, as well as an audiotape contradicting his testimony.These tapes became known as the Fuhrman tapes and would become infamous. This testimony eventually resulted in Fuhrman being charged with and convicted of perjury— charges he never even attempted to contest.

In one 1985 recording, Fuhrman gave a taped interview to Laura Hart McKinny, a writer working on a screenplay about female police officers. In the course of the conversation, he used the word “Nigger” some 42 times. In another interview, he talked about gang members and was quoted as saying, “Yeah we work with niggers and gangs. You can take one of these niggers, drag ’em into the alley and beat the shit out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension.” He went on to say “we had them begging that they’d never be gang members again, begging us.” He said that he would tell them, “You do what you’re told, understand, nigger?”

In short, the detective who was one of the mainstays of the prosecution case, was shown to be an out and out racist of the worst kind, who openly boasted on tape of using his position and authority to further his prejudices and who acted in breach of the laws of the State of California—who had, of course, called him as a material witness.

It is said that Fuhrman’s testimony and his lack of credibility was instrumental in the jury of 10 black people, two white people and two Latino citizens taking less than an hour to acquit O.J. of the murders.

Another factor would have been the guile of another of Simpson’s dream team of lawyers. The late Johnny Cochrane – a small black bespectacled and moustachioed dapper Dan of a lawyer— goaded the prosecution into having Simpson try on one of the by now famous gloves recovered by Fuhrman. He then, in his closing speech—a masterly demonstration of how to speak to a jury—repeatedly insisted that “If the glove don’t fit, then you must acquit” – as it had been seen by one and all that the glove supposedly found by Fuhrman clearly did not fit Simpson’s hands and by implication could not therefore be Simpsons or as significant as the liar Fuhrman would have everyone believe.

Later, it would be revealed that the very first jury vote produced a result in favour of acquittal by a vote of ten to two. After examining some further evidence concerning the testimony of Simpsons chauffeur, the result was unanimous within the hour—much to the surprise of the media commentators.

After months and months of testimony and legal chicanery by both sides, it took less than an hour for the twelve jurors to announce they had reached a verdict.

He was unanimously not guilty!

Simpson—who had also looked the jury in the eye and stated that he was 100% not guilty at the start of the proceedings —— was free to go—but was virtually bankrupt as a result of the trial.

The decision was greeted with mass rejoicing among the black population as it had been widely feared that a conviction would result in riots similar to the events which unfolded after the Rodney King fiasco a few years earlier.

However, further polls suggested that even after unheard of 24 hour TV coverage and detailed in depth TV and press analysis, the common perception amongst the public remained the same. 70% of the black populace thought Simpson not guilty, while exactly the same proportion of whites felt him guilty.

Less than two years later Simpson would be found liable in a civil trial held in the courthouse in the predominantly white Santa Monica. The all white jury, despite hearing much of the same evidence but less invective, determined that Simpson was liable for the unlawful killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

The judge, by coincidence the second Japanese American to preside over a Simpson trial, had refused to allow Simpson’s defence team to take the same supposedly “scattergun” approach to the race related behaviour of the Los Angeles police force and so narrowed the issues down somewhat in comparison to the criminal trial—and of course the case this time need only be proven on the balance of probabilities as opposed to beyond all reasonable doubt.

Whilst the verdict from the jury was not totally unexpected, the level of compensation awarded—some $33Million dollars—- was. The sum was far higher than any of the commentators had been expecting, and seemed to ignore all prior precedent. Yet it was later upheld by the appeal court as not being an unreasonable award nor an award that had been reached by an unreasonable process.

Simpson was never going to pay that sum of course as he had no means of paying such a sum, and had in the interim moved to the state of Florida where the state law prohibits the sale of a person’s home to satisfy their debts.

After his acquittal in the criminal trial, O.J. had vowed to find the real killers and do all he could to see justice was done. By moving to Florida the public perception amongst some was that Simpson was trying to avoid the civil judgement and so escape his civil liabilities.

Once again, polls showed that 70% of blacks thought Simpson innocent, while 70% of Whites felt he was guilty.

One of the jurors in the original trial pointed out at this time that sitting on a jury awarding damages against a millionaire was a very different thing to reaching a decision which may send a man to the electric chair. Further, the same juror pointed out that the jury in the criminal case acknowledged that Simpson had been a wife beater, had committed assault and so on—but that was not the charges that the original jury had to decide upon— murder was murder and the evidence far from convinced them that the District Attorney’s office had proven any case of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

Notwithstanding all of that, 13 years to the day after being acquitted of murder, O.J. Simpson was sent to jail having been found guilty of various offences relating to kidnap, threatening behaviour, and extortion and so on in a Nevada court house.

The offences all related to Simpson’s attempt to recover items which were admittedly stolen from him by supposed sporting memorabilia agents and collectors. Alas he had broken or barged into their hotel room with some others to collect the items by force, and it was alleged that some of his colleagues ( but not Simpson ) had begun to waive a pistol about and would not let the occupants out of the room unless the items were handed over at once.

Once again, an all-white jury found Simpson guilty. Most of his accomplices, who plea bargained and testified against him, were either sentenced to probation, given immunity, or relatively slight sentences despite some of them having previous convictions. Only two people were imprisoned. One of the accomplices received a sentence of six and ahalf years meaning he would serve roughly two.

In contrast, Simpson – for some reson—- was sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 33 years with an instruction that he should not be eligible for parole for a period of nine years at least, making his earliest date for parole 5^th December 2017.

It is hard not to conclude that Simpson may well have been convicted and sentenced for a crime that was not under consideration in Nevada, and instead was sentenced to a term that was more in line with the feelings of the Court of Public opinion—in relation to another matter altogether!

Interestingly, as a postscript one of his co-accused sold a tape recording of discussions with Simpson leading up to the hotel caper, and the entire six and half minute incident that took place in the hotel bedroom to a media outlet. In return the co- accused received a nice six figure sum. The recording revealed some shouting and swearing, threats and bluster—but no one was shot or injured.

So—there we have the tale of The Juice—The formerly great O.J. who now seems condemned in certain respects by a court of law and in the eyes of the court of public opinion.

Now, you may ask just what is the reason for telling this tale on this particular day?

Well—O.J. Looked a jury in the eye and swore he was not guilty.

Mark Fuhrman looked a jury in the eye and swore he was not a racist.

The District Attorney looked the court in the eye and apologised for injudicious leaks from the L.A. police department.

The defence and prosecution lawyers looked potential jurors in the eye and got rid of them if they felt they did not suit their purpose.

In short looking at someone formally in the eye and stating a supposed truth is a measure of nothing!

Equally, the Simpson tale is one that is littered with taped recordings and other evidence which more than suggests that key people in the Simpson saga were simply lying through their teeth to feather their own purposes, and had such a lack of trust in the other people involved that they simply taped various steps and meetings for posterity or self-protection, and that as often as not a tape recording will blow away an attempt to cover up or hide the truth.

So what? You may say.

Well:

Apparently, Campbell Ogilvie looked Stewart Regan in the eye and swore that he had no prior knowledge of contractual EBT’s or the failure to properly register players with the governing body of Scottish Football or of any conflict of interest which would prevent him serving as President of the SFA—despite being an EBT recipient and a director of a company for many years which ran large and small tax avoidance schemes which – in part at least—have been admitted as unlawful.

Stewart Regan looked the camera in the eye and assured everyone with an interest in Scottish Football that Campbell Ogilvie was bona fides, that he had nothing to answer for and had been open and transparent.

Further, Regan said that if Ogilvie was subsequently found to have something to answer for then he would face that situation when it arose.

Regan, it would appear, has also gone into print saying that Rangers PLC were entitled to a European Football Licence despite the fact that Rangers PLC had outstanding and unpaid tax bills at the relevant time—contrary to the rules of UEFA.

Craig Whyte looked Tom English in the eye and denied that he was lying in relation to misuse of funds belong to Rangers PLC and the payment of debts to HMRC.

He was equally adamant that he had not used Ticketus money to clear the debt due by Rangers PLC to Lloyds bank.

Charles Green looked the world in the eye and said many things in relation to Rangers ( Newco ), Sevco 5088 Ltd, and various other dealings and transactions—none of which seem to have come to fruition. He further openly admitted to looking Craig Whyte in the eye and lying to him about his position in any new Rangers and in explanation he says quite clearly that he duped Whyte from day one!

Green has also said that he received a bounced cheque from Whyte and his colleagues, yet digital evidence has now appeared which shows that Mr Green’s account of matters is far from the truth. Contrary to what Green has said there is no evidence that he tried to return Whyte’s money.

Quite separate to these items, it would appear that the testimony of Mr Sandy Bryson in certain football related matters requires a considerable stretch of the legal imagination to be accepted or acceptable. Notwithstanding, the solicitors for the SPL and indeed Lord Nimmo-Smith made the stretch concerned without too much difficulty—leaving a dirty taste in the mouth of some as they did so.

Leaving the affairs of Rangers specifically behind for the moment, the entire licensing set up within Scottish Football relies on a self-certification base platform whereby club officials simply state that they are compliant and send along documentation which purportedly supports that contention.

Yet, despite this process, we see several clubs go to the wall and we find that on greater inspection there have been more than a few individuals in the game who have been less than frank in their disclosures with the result that teams and most importantly supporters suffer. Regrettably, it would appear that by the time the blazered gentlemen at the SFA twig to the fact that they have perhaps not benefitted from as full disclosure as they might like, the culprits have been exposed elsewhere and have legally flown the coup.

I don’t believe that the activities of Gavin Masterton, Vladimir Romanov, Sir David Murray, Craig Whyte, Charles Green and others have been sufficiently open and transparent to render them fit to play a part in Scottish Football.

The transparency and clarity of action needed in senior positions within the game extends to those such as Mr Ogilvie and Mr Regan—and again in my opinion – for different reasons – they are found wanting!

The current position—especially as revealed by the infamous Charlotte leaks— shows a system that is open to manipulation behind the scenes and in the press, and a system which is governed by personnel who appear to be willing to consider and implement such manipulation if it suits their purpose.

Neither system of Governance nor the people who govern should be allowed to remain.

Of course there are those who maintain that Charlotte the Harlot is no more than a sophisticated spin doctor for Craig Whyte, while others maintain that the information provided is genuine with Craig absolutely unable to prevent its release should he want to.

Either way, the information reveals fissures in the procedures and in the actings of those at the top of Scottish football. The leaks cannot be dismissed without the need for some further questions being asked by those who read them—and when questions are asked any reply that simply ducks the issue or smacks of pleading the fifth amendment sounds and smells in the same way as Mark Fuhrman did when he refused to answer further questions from O.J. Simpson’s lawyers on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

A fortnight ago, O.J. Simpson—now a bloated, fat and unfit looking 65 year old resident and inmate of The Lovelock Correctional Center— sought to overturn his conviction and gain a retrial on the grounds that he was given bum legal advice and that his attorneys handled the Nevada trial badly.

His motion is under consideration, but I doubt it will get him too far.

Whether he succeeds in court or not, he will still be seen as a murderer who got away with it  by many despite the verdict in another court—the court of public opinion tends to ignore the legalities when it suits and instead convicts on reputation or character. The Juice is now the man who got away with murder—his football career forgotten.

By contrast, Fuhrman was dismissed by the police after his conviction, but was snapped up by the media hosting talk shows and writing books on unsolved crimes and so on. While Simpson is in jail and bankrupt having been acquitted of murder, Fuhrman was convicted of perjury, is a disgraced cop and apparently a millionaire as a result— although all accept that he is a disreputable character and was a racist bully!

Where stands the character and the reputation of those who govern Scottish Football as a result of the Charlotte leaks and other factors that are now known and publicly accepted?

Where stands the character of those earnest and blazered men of the SFA who looked us in the eyes and assured us of bona fides and absolute propriety—just like Detective Fuhrman did with a Los Angeles jury only to be exposed by a tape recording or two?

Well, I would encourage everyone to heed the words of a man of letters namely Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

Many will know Samuel by his “pen” name of Mr Mark Twain.

Twain made a lot of money with his writings and lectures—and promptly lost his fortune and that of his heiress wife when he invested heavily in the wrong things. Ultimately, he filed for his own bankruptcy and sought protection from his creditors.

However, Samuel— or Mark if you prefer—- knew the value of character and the truth of how people were judged in society whether that be right or wrong.

He undertook an arduous lecture tour which literally took him all around the globe, and as a result of this he raised enough money to pay all of his creditors in full—even although he was not legally obliged to do so.

The law was one thing—character is another.

For me Mark Twain summed up many a forceful witness and shady official—football or otherwise— with a comment he made following one of his tours of the American mid-west.

He concluded and advised “ That you should never play cards with a man called Doc, and never trust a man who always looks you square down in the eye!”

Remember that after the events at the Hampden press conference today.

 

 

 

 

 

The Man from God Knows Where– and God Knows When!

The young man looked at the diminutive smiling man facing him and wondered. Could this really be the same man that he had heard of and seen old footage of? Was this really the same man who 30 years earlier had achieved what many had considered to be legendary status?

The older man greeted him with what appeared to be an ever present smile. He was less than 5’4”, balding, fat, and wore what could best be described as a dirty grey suit which sort of hung off his shoulders. In a perverse way he had clearly donned the suit to make an effort to impress, possibly not realising that the suit was the absolute antithesis of what one could describe as an impressive appearance.

The two chatted briefly, with the older man having very rudimentary English—almost pidgin English—it was just about possible to follow what he was saying.

The young man was there to be coached— but not coached by yet another coach who could bark orders, make suggestions, talk about technique and regimes which might improve performance— no the young man was there to hear from the master’s voice, to learn from someone who had worn the T-shirt, walked the walk and essentially beaten the rest of the world—– out of sight —— some 30 years before.

Yet it was hard to really accept that this small balding fat man in the rumpled suit was the same man who had been king of the world in his chosen sport.

However, as soon as the old man swapped the suit for a tracksuit, the young man knew that this was indeed—– THE man.

Despite his age—whatever it was— and the belly, when the little man started to run, he did so effortlessly and with an ease and grace that was just indescribable, yet his way of running was as good as a signature. The young man knew that gait—and would know it anywhere—and he felt his heart quicken—this was really happening.

The old man made him run solidly for one hour non-stop. He ran with him for some of that time, and then stopped and contented himself with coaching and encouraging from the side-lines in that pidgin English. Then, as the young man approached the completion of the hour’s workout, the wee balding man strode on to the track and ran beside him once more to give orders from the shoulder—- matching him step for step—- speaking in what could be described as a sing song voice:

“ Now” he said “Spreent—Spreent fast as you can—for waan mile—four times round dee track with no stopping and as fast as you can—–Go!”—and with that the wee man was off.

The young man chased after him, caught him, went by him—and ran for his life.

For the next three and half laps he ran as he thought that he never could. The old man had stopped running other than to accompany him in 40-50 yards bursts each time his student came round the near side of the track— which just kept the young man going until the last of the four laps were completed.

When they were finished the young man collapsed over a barrier and was more violently sick than he had ever been in his life! He retched and retched till his ribs were aching and his guts were as empty as could be. His throat was dry and in pain. Death, he thought, might well be a possibility at that point—and it might even be welcome!

The feeling of discomfort was made all the worse by the fact that the same smiling pot-bellied little man stood watching. He leaned against a barrier with his legs and arms crossed showing ever greater amusement at the younger man’s discomfort. With each painful retch of the gut, the little man cackled and laughed—getting ever louder and finding the scene amusing and funny. When eventually the youngster had spewed his last, the older man patted him on the back and said “well done!” and started to walk back to the changing room with the young protégé.

The younger man’s legs were like lead and he felt almost dizzy and unsteady on his feet. If this was progress— the truth was that he didn’t like it— at all.

As they walked, the older man added some final words of wisdom:

“ You can go faster, you know! You just have to keep training. Push yourself and focus on geeving evereree last ounce of effort”

“ Oh” he said “ One more thing. No women!— You go faster with no women” and with that he cackled off laughing uncontrollably as he headed into the changing room.

————————————————————————

The story of the small balding man referred to above is one of sports great mysteries. For someone who became a household name in certain quarters, it has to be said that even several decades on there are many things that remain unknown about the man concerned.

Much of what remains a mystery stays that way because he just will not tell you! Perhaps there are some things that he simply does not know about himself? On the other hand there are some things that he most certainly does know but simply just does not talk about—and never will.

What is known, is that he pitched up in Toronto Canada in 1997 and to the astonishment of some if not all, he sought full formal political asylum. He was given a house, access to a lawyer, some furniture and a rudimentary income while his application for asylum was under consideration.

In support of his application to stay, he showed those interested his bare legs. They were grotesquely marked with welts, bruises, cuts, scabs and other abrasions which showed that he had recently been badly tortured— so much so— that after a prolonged period of living under an authoritarian and bullying regime—he had had enough and decided to leave his native country surreptitiously and with no warning whatsoever.

He took the decision to leave his family behind and seek asylum in Canada. He was fleeing for his life!

In public, however, he would not say too much for fear of recriminations back home—recriminations which would be exacted on his family who remained there— family who were vulnerable while he stayed in Canada and made the position of his homeland public by his very presence.

It was all so very different from that day in the ‘60’s.

Back then, the little man had been a simple goat herder and occasional factory worker.

Poor?

Poor wasn’t the word for it.

He lived in the mountains, in a mud hut and scraped a living working in different factories, as a carriage driver and herding his goats.

Then, one day, he saw a running team. They were clearly training for an event somewhere.

Each member of the team, had shorts and a vest. They had been conscripted into the air force, and they were kitted out with those shoes, shorts and vests. More importantly, they were given accommodation and food.

The little man watched them run, noted their speed and their stamina and decided he would go and speak to their commanding officer in charge.

When he found the officer, Captain Gudina Kotu, who was leader of the team, he introduced himself and begged him to let him run with the training athletes. Captain Gudina, after a degree of badgering and pleading, finally succumbed and agreed to let the little man who stood before him run with the rest of the squad.

They would be having a race the following day, said the Captain, and the goat herder was allowed to try his luck.

The next day, a troupe of somewhat surprised trained athletes were joined in a cross country race over several miles, by a previously unknown midget like goat herder and factory worker – who astonished all by managing to come third with no training whatsoever.

Within a short space of time, the little man was an ex goat herder and was inducted into the Air force instead. When he performed exceptionally in the 1500, 5000 and 10000 meter events in the Asmara region he himself took the decision to approach national officials present and asked if they would let him practice with the national team that was making final preparations for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. As a result, he was placed in the national team and was soon on his way to Mexico where he was part of a team that was preparing for the Games.

He wouldn’t get to run competitively in Mexico—as only two spaces were allowed, but he saw what it took at a major international event and he knew that eventually his time would come.

However, before he could make a name for himself on the world stage—or even any stage— he had to answer a few questions such as who was he, what age was he, and where did he come from.

Well, he knew his name alright he thought—it was Muruse although he was sometimes called Miru.

As for his date of birth?

He had no idea. In subsequent years it would be officially recorded as 15^th May 1944 – then again it would also be officially recorded as 1^st January 1938 – and several dates in between. In truth, no one really knows but his appearance suggested that he was more likely to have been born in 1938 than 1944.

Where did he come from? Sometimes he said Adigat—other times he said the Tigray region—again he was quite vague. Wherever he came from, he came from somewhere up in the mountains of Eritrea.

After the 1968 Olympics he disappeared from international view—not that he was well known internationally before then—he had just been recorded as a member of the Olympic party for 1968, but no one had seen him run other than a very few people in his homeland.

By the 1972 Olympic games that was all to change.

You would think that coming third in an Olympic Games event would result in you gaining some sort of credence in your own country? A bronze medal at an Olympic Games is no mean achievement.

Yet in this case, when the little man’s aircraft touched down carrying him and his bronze medal, he was not met by the kind of welcoming party one would expect. As he walked down the aircraft steps, he was met by national officials alright, placed in a car and taken straight to jail!

He would remain there for three months—without trial and without explanation.

The fact that he had finished third in a 10,000 metre race which saw the great Lasse Viren crowned Olympic champion at the distance was irrelevant in the eyes of the authorities. The fact that he had won his heat beating Scotland’s Lachie Stewart and in the final had beaten other international names such as Dave Bedford and Frank Shorter of the USA counted for nothing.

What had attracted the ire of the authorities was the fact that the little goat herder just failed to turn up for the final of the 5,000 metres. He just did not show at all and as a result the Government thought him a traitor—the no show being an act of treason.

Later, he would say that he got lost in the stadium and that he had made a mistake. Later still he would say that he was misdirected by officials. He would also claim that some of his own national officials had deliberately given him wrong information about where to go. At other times, he would simply refuse to talk about what had happened at all, with the result that over 40 years later, what happened that day in 1972 is still a mystery—a mystery that had him taken straight to jail without trial when he returned home.

This was the start of his difficulties with authorities. These difficulties would come and go until he decided he could bear it no longer and fled for Canada.

However, back in 1972 he continued to train—Prison or no Prison, Authorities or no Authorities. He trained in the prison, and trained on his own when he was eventually released. Once again he sought permission to run for his country notwithstanding his jail experience.

The following year would see him enter the all-African games, and he would take Gold in the 10,000 metres and silver in the 5,000 metres defeating the much fancied Kenyans and Moroccans, and leaving former Olympic Champion Mohammed Gammoudi of Tunisia in his wake.

In the world of international athletics, the little goat herder was now a force to be reckoned with

But who he was and where he came from still remained a mystery as people could never reconcile his given date of birth with his appearance. Surely he was older than that? He certainly looked older than that—a lot older.

However, the questions about his age subsided as people were mesmerised by his astonishing speed—especially over a final three hundred to four hundred metres. Whatever age he was there was no doubting the fact that at the end of any distance race at all, he could suddenly take off with a devastating burst of speed which simply left everyone else in his wake.

The questions about his age subsided even further thanks to an inadvertent comment from the BBC’s David Coleman during the course of a race. By that time, the little man entered races under a different name than Miruse or Miru— instead he gave his name as Captain Miruts. His surname was sometimes written as Yefter, but more often as Yifter, and so on one fateful evening David Coleman, in an attempt to describe his running tactics and his unbelievable burst of speed over the last 300 metres of any race, dubbed him Yifter—— The Shifter!

The Legend of Yifter the Shifter is a tale of a small man who came from God knows where and who could simply run naturally and more quickly than any other human being on the planet over a given distance. A feat which he performed in the strangest of circumstances over a prolonged period of time.

During a stranger than fiction athletics career, Miruts Yifter would run in 252 officially recognised distance races—these included Grand Prix, Olympic races, World championships, African championships and challenge matches. Of the 252, he officially won 221 of these.

When I say 221 I should explain that there is at least one other race that he won—or should have won or thought he won.

Running in America against the US track and field legend Steve Prefontaine, Yifter and Prefontaine were the only two left in the race as they reached the final stages. Suddenly, Yifter took off in a blistering burst of pace which the American just could not match. The small balding man tore round the track to the astonishment of all watching and stepped off the track as he crossed the finishing line. However, he had miscounted the laps and Prefontaine merely continued round the track to claim victory.

Yifter later explained he had miscounted the laps—he was after all a simple goat herder and was prone to the odd glaring mistake— such as not turning up for an Olympic 5,000 metre final.

Irrespective of the result, it was clear that despite Prefontaine’s superb ability, he could not live with the small balding man when Yifter decided to shift. No one could.

Having claimed Bronze at the 1972 Munich Olympics in the 10,000 metres, Yifter was all set for Gold in Montreal in 1976. He was confident of a 10,000 and 5,000 metres double.

Alas it was not to be.

On the eve of the games, the Ethiopian Government decided that they would boycott the games along with most other African countries. The action was taken in protest at the International Olympics Committee’s refusal to ban New Zealand from the games after the All Blacks had toured South Africa where the Apartheid regime was in place. Whilst disappointed, Yifter wholly supported the ban, however when he returned home to Ethiopia he was to find yet another unexpected welcome when returning from the Olympics.

Not only had the Ethiopian Government supported the Olympic boycott—they had disbanded the Athletics team altogether.

Yifter was now left to train on his own with little or no organised support.

Further, taking his own stated dates of birth, he was now (in 1976) either 38 or 32—with most suggesting that he was at least 38!

In Montreal, Lasse Viren had retained his 5,000 and 10,000 metres Olympic titles to great acclaim. However, it was now accepted that Viren used the controversial practice of blood transfusion before races—and virtually only ran at Olympic events. While Yifter admired Viren he believed that he was the better athlete.

At Coamo, Puerto Rico on 6 February 1977, Yifter ran a World Best for the half-marathon of 1:02:57. It was a performance that made the Athletics world sit up and take notice again.

At the 1977 World Cup in Dusseldorf Yifter blew away the 5,000 and 10,000 metres fields and lifted both titles—but there was no Viren and he wanted the Viren scalp.

Two years later, The IAAF World Cup came to Montreal, Canada. Now there was a new generation of runners. Craig Virgin had taken over the mantle of the American hero from Prefontaine who had been tragically killed in a car crash. Virgin was the big American hope. John Treacy of Ireland was a contender as was Kunze of Germany who was an incredibly fast finisher.

However, yet again, they all trailed behind the former goat herder when it came to the 10,000 metres. When it came to the 5,000 metres, David Coleman once again questioned Yifter’s age in the commentary box and begged the question as to what cost Yifter would pay for winning the 10,000 metres only days before. Surely that had been energy sapping for a man of any age? Let alone someone who was clearly older than the official age given?

When the 5,000 metre race had two and half laps to go the Russian athlete Abramov decided to make a move and started to sprint for the finish only to find the tiny African match him step for step. With 300 metres to go the little goat herder took off once more at a speed that had to be seen to be believed. His last lap took just 53 seconds. He was now a double double world champion and undoubtedly the greatest male athlete at the games.

But there was no Viren.

For those who do not know, Lasse Viren was borne in Finland on the 22^nd of July 1949 which puts him somewhere between 5 and 11 years younger than Yifter.

He trained as an athlete at Brigham Young University in America for a while, and made his international debut at the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki where he was eclipsed by his fellow Fin Juha Väätäinen, who captured gold medals in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meter events with Virén settling for modest 7th and 17th placings, respectively. By the way the 5,000 metres race between Juha the cruel and the chasing Russian is one of the greatest of all time where Juha set a new Finnish record.

However, It is said that Viren would have performed much better in Helsinki had he performed the “Emptying Exercise” to ensure that he was at his finest for the all-important race.

By the “emptying exercise” top runners mean that they push their bodies to a state of total exhaustion or lack of energy ( just as described at the start of this story ) so that their bodies can completely replenish and once again receive  as much energy as possible, and so that they can repeat their top race performances. Shortly after those European Championships, Viren broke Väätäinen’s fresh Finnish record at 5,000 metres.

Buoyed by a brutal training regimen in Thomson’s Falls, Kenya, and very impressive results, which included the smashing of the 2-mile world record and wins against Great Britain and Spain in a meet held in Helsinki in the summer of 1972, Lasse Virén entered the Munich Olympic Games as a dark horse.

As we know, Viren won the 10,000 metres ( breaking Ron Clarke’s 7 year old world record in the process ) and did the double when he also triumphed at 5,000 metres. He repeated the “double” feat in the 1976 Montreal games when the African nations boycotted the event. In the 5,000 metre final, he held off all-time greats Dick Quax, Rod Dixon, and Brendan Foster (all world-class at 1,500 m) with a devastating display of front-running over the last few laps. To those who watched him, the display was awesomely inspiring to the point that his last 1,500 meters in that final would have placed him 8th in the 1,500-metre final held at those Games. The top four runners sprinted to the finish line inside six metres, a rare occurrence in major international championships. Remarkably, 18 hours after the 5,000-meter final, he competed in the men’s marathon and finished fifth in 2:13:11

However, the 10,000 metre final of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow would see Viren face Yifter for the first time since the 1972 final in Munich. Viren, nearly didn’t make the final as he looked helpless in his heat finishing 4^th and so was not guaranteed an automatic final place. Indeed he was lucky in that Ireland’s John Tracy was forced to pull out of the final due to heat exhaustion – and that put Viren in the final automatically.

In the final race itself, Viren performed spectacularly and ran an excellent race—so much so that in commentary David Coleman almost totally ignored the other athletes who were running with him. All British interest—Brendan Foster and Mike McLeod were some considerable distance back, and so Coleman and the late Ron Pickering referred constantly to the remarkable turn round in form shown by the Finnish Policeman in comparison to his miserable showing in the heats. He was in many respects dominating the pace of the race even though it had tuned into a contest between Ethiopia and Finland with both nations exclusively represented in the leading pack. The commentary was very much focused on the Fin’s attempt to win a third successive gold medal. However, unlike Montreal four years before, right on Viren’s tail throughout the race was Miruts Yifter who was barely mentioned in the course of the race.

Noticeably smaller than all the others there, Yifter claimed to be officially thirty five years old at the time, although in early commentary David Coleman would rubbish that by saying he was at least thirty seven and looked considerably older.

Prior to the race, Yifter had been asked directly just how old he was and replied in a manner that must have been studied by a young Eric Cantona back in France:

“Men may steal my chickens; men may steal my sheep. But no man can steal my age.” He said—to the mystification of all.

Going by at least one date of birth given by Yifter in official competition previously, the tiny Ethiopian would have been 42 years old in Moscow. Since his retiral from Athletics, his request for political asylum has apparently thrown up evidence that he was in fact more likely to have been 44 years of age—fully 13 years older than Viren who was of course considered a veteran at 31.

Irrespective of what age he was, when the race got to 800 metres out Viren strove for home but could not escape the pack despite an obvious quickening of the pace. Having made the move, and having failed to put clear space between himself and the chasing bunch, Viren was more or less helpless when the man from God knows where, born God knows when, turned on the burners with 300 Metres to go!

When Yifter turned up the pace the rest wilted. No one had finishing speed like this and he simply ran away from the remainder after 9,700 metres of fast paced racing in blistering heat.

The Goat Herder was an Olympic champion, the African Champion and a double double world champion.

It had taken 12 years since Mexico 1968 to achieve that goal and if we now accept that he was in fact born in 1936 then had he won gold at the same age as Viren when Viren won in Munich, Yifter would have been crowned Olympic Champion in 1960!

In other words, Had Yifter started running at an early age he could have competed at the very top for 20 years!

Yet, he was not finished.

A few days after securing the gold medal in the 10,000 metres, The Little Goat Herder lined up for the faster 5,000 metre final.

In a competition that had featured Mohamed Kedir and Yohannes Mohamed of Ethiopia, Ireland’s John Treacy and Eamonn Coughlin, Finland’s  Martti Vainio and Kaarlo Maaninka, Tanzania’s Suleiman Nyambui and a whole host of other world class athletes ( The likes of Britain’s Dave Moorcroft could not even qualify for the final ) Yifter ran fully 20 seconds faster than he had done in the semi-finals, and fully 23 seconds faster than he had done in the first round, to take his second gold of the games!

The fact that he was only 0.6 of a second faster than Nyambui in second place and a single second ahead of Maaninka in third demonstrated that Yifter only did enough to win. He was pressed to the very finish by Nyambui who had been the fastest man in the world over the distance the year before.

However on this occasion the towering Tanzanian could only follow the little goat herder home and later in the year they could all only stand and watch as Yifter recorded the fastest time in the world in Bratislava where he would run the distance more than 20 seconds quicker than he did in Moscow.

Clearly, The Olympic Games in Moscow and the track and field season of 1980 were the zenith of Yifter’s athletics career yet he continued to compete into the early 1980s, running on Ethiopia’s gold medal winning team at the 1982 and 1983 IAAF World Cross Country Championships when by all accounts he would have been 47 years old!

After Moscow A hero’s welcome awaited the double gold medal winner when he returned home to Ethiopia from the 1980 Olympics. Thousands lined the streets and he was given a car, a luxury villa and a Government position promoting athletics. It was very different to his return from Munich in 1972.

Amazingly, Yifter decided that he would target the Marathon at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles but once again his country’s decision to Boycott an Olympiad meant that his plans were wrecked, and soon after he retired from all competition not far short of possibly his 50^th year.

However, his retiral was not to be peaceful.

By 1997 he had lost his Athletics Job and he fled to Canada in fear of his life.

He fled in the middle of a horrific civil war where being from the wrong tribe or place had dire consequences—even for an Olympic hero. Hundreds of political prisoners in Ethiopia were detained without trial at the time, according to Amnesty International. Many were tortured. Journalists, teachers and union leaders were all imprisoned. Others simply disappeared. At the time Ethiopia was one of only two African nations that did not ratify the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. As Yifter was to demonstrate in Canada his legs had been badly tortured and scarred—where once the Ethiopian Government had sought glory on the achievements of those legs, now they wanted to break them altogether.

Thankfully, over time, things in Ethiopia improved and the little goat herder was able to return to his home country where the tradition of long distance running has prevailed.

Haile Gebrselassie had listened to Yifter’s victory in Moscow on a radio and had determined to emulate the nation’s sporting hero, which he did by becoming one of the world’s all time great distance runners.

However, it was a generation down the line that saw Ethiopia return to the very top of athletics with Kenenisa Bekele, becoming 5,000 and 10,000 metres world champion and holder of the Olympic 10,000 metres record, having repeated Yifter’s triumph of taking Gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres in Beijing.

Millon Wolde and Gezahgne Abera, were the Ethiopian gold medallists in the 5,000 metres and the marathon respectively at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and like Bekele both had stints where they were coached by the little Goat Herder.

Captain Miruts Yifter —–Mysterious but talented and inexplicable.

His age is a secret and his place of birth uncertain, but one thing is sure:

To many in Ethiopia Yifter is a hero who deserved all the medals he won and the accolades given to someone who had the most astonishing burst of speed over an amazing long distance running career. His age and the mystery of what he could have achieved had he started running seriously at an earlier age will always be the subject of conjecture.

However few top class athletes in any sport trained from prison or on their own or faced such difficult and oppressive times as the mood of the government see sawed from one year to the next.

It took incredible resolve to achieve success against that back ground—and a love of just running faster than anyone else.

Today, Miruts Yifter does what he can to support refugees from all countries and lends his name to various movements which help the politically oppressed and needy.

He is revered as a former Internationally known athlete and coach

However, for me, he will always be the little goat herder who will be remembered for that astonishing burst of pace and for the inevitable comment  “ There goes Yifter— The Shifter!”

Race over.