Born to Fight--The True Story of Richy 'Crazy Horse' Horsley (10 page)

The kids were my life and I loved them to bits. I wanted everything to be as normal as possible for them. We had birthday parties for them both where we’d invite their school friends and relatives. My mother would always have a big spread on for them: sandwiches, cakes, pop, crisps, jelly, ice cream, a birthday cake with candles on, and there’d always be games like ‘Pass the Parcel’ and ‘Musical Chairs’. For the adults, there would be plenty of lager. We had some great times. An old friend of my mam’s called Mary always called in with sweets for the kids and our dog Cassie was always licking the salt from her feet.

Life couldn’t have been better but, as sod’s law would have it, things started to get bad. I had a feeling that Gail was being unfaithful and it was just a matter of time before we split up, but it was going to kill me to lose the kids, so I kept my mouth shut for their sakes.
They were doing well in school and had a happy home – I didn’t want any unrest for them. But at the same time I didn’t want to be played a fool. There’s an old saying that I’m sure most of you will be familiar with: What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Well, I too could play that game, and it wasn’t long before I started seeing a young lass who came into the pub, a bonnie girl called Angie who was only 18. Another time I went back to a lass’s house when her boyfriend was out. I think her name was Jackie. I knocked on the door and within ten minutes we were in bed. She called me ‘Merlin’ because she said I was a wizard underneath the sheets. All of a sudden, Jackie said, ‘Stop, I can hear a noise.’ The boyfriend had returned and was only stood on the stairs listening to us. Talk about getting caught red-handed, I was caught red-ended! I could hear him trudge back downstairs and go into the living room. I think the only reason he never came in the bedroom was because I’d left my coat in the front room and he had a look at the size of it and thought, He’s a big cunt. I put my clothes on and went downstairs. The boyfriend said, ‘All right, Richy.’ I sheepishly and undiplomatically said, ‘All right, Johnny, I didn’t know she was your bird or I wouldn’t have or fucked her.’ That didn’t go down too well. I put my coat on and left. I didn’t know his full name, I only knew him as Johnny and I’d never seen him for years. I saw her a few days later walking down Church Street with two black eyes.

I was wanted elsewhere, so I worked in loads of different pubs. I worked the roughest bars in town, all the trouble spots. On Bank Holidays I would be guaranteed at least three fights. When there was trouble, I’d be straight in to sort it. Sometimes I’d have some rough and tumble and end up chinning a few because that’s the only language some people understand. I worked the doors with numerous lads: Andy, Philly, Trev, Marcel, Kenny, Eddie, Martin, Mick Sorby and many more. I had fought some tough cookies but the first real hard man I fought, called Big George, was when I was on the door. This man could fight and was in his prime, strong as an ox and about 17 stone of muscle and gristle. He’d had a grievance with the doormen of a pub one night and went off his head and knocked them all out. Then he exploded into a fit of temper and just went from pub to pub knocking bouncers out. We were called to a pub that had our doormen on. Big George had just wiped out all the bouncers; there were shirts ripped off, teeth knocked out, claret and glass everywhere. He had just left, and was heading in the direction of our pub.

I raced back before he got there and stood at the entrance with Blackie, one of the other bouncers. He turned up just at chucking-out time. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. He had already pummelled ten bouncers. Straight away, Blackie started to fight with him, giving it his all. But then he started to take a
thrashing, so I dragged the geezer off and threw him to the ground. A load of people were already in the street and plenty more were coming out the pubs. The crowd was there – I knew this was it and that I was ready.

He got up like the terminator and stood in the middle of the road and roared, ‘I want to fight you, now!’ I walked over and he came towards me. I moved in close and was ready for the clash. I clattered him with two sharp right uppercuts; both landed one after the other. Bang! Bang! Normally when you land an uppercut it’s all over, but this man could take a hell of a shot. He was still on his feet, so I battered him with a flurry of combinations: right, left, right, right, right and a sweet right hand. He went down. For good measure, I booted him in the head before turning around and quickly walking into the pub, away from the scene. Everyone in the place was buzzing at how quick I done him. After we got everyone out, we had a lock-in. Soon enough, Big George came back and started banging on the windows, whilst waving a knife about. We wouldn’t let him in so he threw a wobbler and stabbed all the tyres on the cars outside. Not long after that, we settled our differences.

Around that time, two bodybuilders that fancied themselves came in to the pub. They were whopping big blokes – and didn’t they fucking know it? One of them kept weighing me up. I didn’t know whether he thought he knew me from somewhere or whether he was just
staring because he was cocksure of himself. I personally hadn’t seen any of them before. The one who kept staring had overdone it on the sunbed because he was as brown as hell, with a David Dickinson tan. They finished their drinks and started leaving. You should have seen the walk on the pair of them, you’d think they were each carrying an invisible carpet under each arm. It looked stupid to me, as they portrayed themselves to be hard as nails. As ‘Mr Sunbed’ walked past, he stared at me with a smug look on his face, so I followed them both outside. I said loudly, ‘Here, Chippendale.’

When he turned around I said, ‘What’s your fucking problem?’

He went for me, trying to grab me so he could use his strength for some rough and tumble. But I was equally fast and unleashed a furious right uppercut on to his chin. His legs went from under him like a baby deer. They say, the bigger you are, the harder you fall and, in this case, that was correct! He hit the deck like a broken lift. Mr Sunbed’s mate threw his hands up and pleaded, ‘I don’t want nowt, mate.’ Sunbed was trying to pull himself together like a pair of worn-out curtains on the floor, but he was fucked and didn’t know what day of the week it was. I ordered the other one, ‘Pick your mate up and fuck off,’ and went back inside.

After about five minutes had passed, I went outside and they’d gone. I got a shock though when I checked my hand to see if my knuckles were swelling or had any
bruising. There was false tan on my knuckles! I still chuckle about that to this day.

Every Sunday I’d travel to different spiritualist churches. It gave me spiritual enlightenment and I enjoyed getting away from the hustle and bustle of the doors. One night I was told by a medium that I had gypsy blood in me. He could see the horse-drawn trailers of my ancestors going back generations. I didn’t know about my bloodline because I was adopted, so I put it to the back of my mind. I did that for two years. I often wake up during the night and most times I find it hard to go back to sleep. One night when I woke up I saw what I believe to have been the spirit of a young girl, stood at the side of my bed. She looked about eight years old, with long dark hair that went past her shoulders. She was wearing an old school uniform and a white hat, just like that worn at St Trinians, the Catholic school I used to play football against. For a couple of seconds, I was startled. She never spoke to me, but just stared. Strangely enough, I felt a nice, peaceful energy coming from her. I also sensed another spirit in the room, which I couldn’t actually see. They both vanished after ten seconds. I haven’t a clue who they were or what they wanted.

My boxing career may have been over, but that didn’t stop me from going to the odd sparring session. I went back to the Boys Welfare for a few months. By then I was weighing in at fifteen and a half stone. I always
liked it at the Welfare. It was always a challenge when I got in the ring because all the young guns I sparred with would give me their best shots. Not long after, I started going to a kick-boxing gym. Every session started with a run and I would always trail in last. I noticed they were brilliant with their kicks, but not that clever with their hands so I’d get in the ring and spar with them just using my hands, in order to bring their punching on. I’d do eight rounds straight off. The younger kids couldn’t understand how they were fitter than me, but couldn’t outlast me in the ring. It was all down to one word: experience. The trainer there was keen for me to have a few fights and then enter the British Championships. He said I had what it takes, but I wasn’t really into all that kicking malarkey, so declined his offer.

Things never stand still. After four years of my mother looking after him, Ken had to finally go into a home because of my mam's ill health. Her elbows were shattered through lifting him and she now had osteoporosis from all the cancer treatment she'd had in 1970, which drained her bones of calcium and made them incredibly brittle. Back then, the kind of treatment she was receiving was fairly new, and the side effects were not yet known. She even had to get an electric tin opener because she broke her wrist in two places while opening a tin with a manual opener! My own family life changed when, finally, Gail and I split up. It had been on the cards for a long time and we only stayed together because of the kids. I'd been prepared for a split for months but it doesn't matter how much you
prepare yourself, when you lose your kids, it hits you harder than any physical blow. It broke my heart. A strong man cries – it's the weak man who holds back his tears, thinking it a sign of weakness. But when you don't cry, it all builds up inside you, causing breakdowns that can destroy you. You feel much better if you can cry because it releases a lot of built-up tension. I never got to see the children for about six months. In consequence of the pain of that episode, I became very wary of letting anyone get too close to me. There remains a little distance there with my kids, but I love them more than anything and have a bottomless pit of feelings for them.

I started to become friendly with a girl from Middlesbrough called Heather, a lovely lass. We went to the pictures to see the Kevin Costner film,
Dances With Wolves
. I went out round Middlesbrough with her a few times, drinking and nightclubbing. One night she came to my pub with her cousin, who I set up on a blind date with my mate Rob. We all went up to Middlesbrough for the night. I was teasing Rob saying, ‘She's not up to much, but she'll do for you,' and things like that, winding him up. But when she turned up Rob was over the moon, as was she. He moved in with her for about five years and had two kids together. My relationship with Heather, though, took a turn for the worse when I passed the crabs onto her from some girl. She came in the pub loudly shouting, ‘Thanks for the dose of fucking
crabs.' I stayed cool and said, ‘It's OK, you're quite welcome.' I never saw her again, I wonder why?

Not long after that I started working at a pub on the seafront, a karaoke bar that was always full to the brim. I was working with a lad called ‘Vulture'. He was a popular bloke whose relations would come to the club, whom we would have some good nights with. One night the manager told us that the owners were getting Lee ‘The Duffer' Duffy over for protection, in order to look after the club for a few weeks. For those of you not familiar with the Duffer, here's a quick history of the man:

Attempts on his life: Numerous! Shot in the knee! Shot in the foot! Petrol attack to set him on fire!

For some reason fate kept us apart, as I never ended up meeting the man, but I heard plenty about him. Lee Duffy was a man apart and someone who only comes around once in a lifetime – a total one-off. There have been a lot of things written about him in the press, but there are two sides to every story and Lee's family have
never fully told us their side. They are very distrustful of the press after Lee was made out to be some kind of monster. I also think that if Lee had been born and bred in London, he would have been an icon. He was Robin Hood, Dick Turpin and Muhammad Ali all rolled into one. A good friend of mine from bouncing, Brian Cockerill, had once fought Lee. He told me that the punch Lee hit him with during a fight was the hardest he'd ever been hit – and Brian's been hit over the head and legs with hammers, axes and machetes. He said Lee was very fast for a big man and had phenomenal hand speed. He ended up doing four years for GBH – although he only served two – and was sent to no less than eighteen jails. As soon as he arrived at any of them, he would seek out the hardest man in the joint, walk straight over to them and scowl, ‘I'm Lee Duffy.' Bang! Bang! Bang! They would be clattered into submission. In every jail, he became ‘The Daddy'.

What is frightening is that when he died he had just turned 26 years old and was five or six years away from his prime. This was a man who would go into the local pubs of his enemies alone. He'd put a see-through bag of money on the bar and leave it there and sit in the corner. He had some bottle, or no fear. He must have done it half a dozen times and not once was the money touched, although there was always plenty of interest until they found out who it belonged to! When entering certain nightclubs, it was not uncommon for the DJ to
announce to thousands of punters, ‘Lee Duffy has entered the building.' He had a fierce rivalry with his counterpart on Tyneside, Viv Graham. When Lee went to visit a relation in Durham Jail, Viv was also in there having a visit from friends. Lee walked straight up to Viv's table and demanded of Viv, ‘Do you know who I am?' Viv told him to fuck off, and that was the start of it all. I would have put Lee against any man, and I mean any man.

Lee was a formidable-looking giant of a man. His presence was felt before he had even entered a room. He had such a presence about him that it has been said that he could go into a nightclub with 1,000 people in the place and within 10 minutes there would only be 100 people left in the building. He would not need to hit anyone with his fists, but his presence was felt. Someone who knew Duffy described him as a schizophrenic. When he once had petrol thrown over him, he just whacked the geezer and broke his jaw before he had a chance to pull a lighter out. When he had a gun pointed at his belly, he just wrestled his opponent to the floor. He was fearless.

Duffy was supposed to come in one night to the pub, but sent a couple of naughty lads from Middlesbrough in his place. Another week later the manager said, ‘Lee Duffy is coming tomorrow night.' But he never turned up because he was entertaining friends in 'Boro. Later that same night he was stabbed to death in a fight. It was
25 August 1991. He was killed at 3.30am outside the Afro-Caribbean Centre in Marton Road, Middlesbrough. Apparently an argument had kicked off in the centre and the other man, fearing Duffy had a gun, swung out with a knife. A great hard man, Lee Duffy has passed into legend since. May he rest in peace.

I had a number of new bouncing partners after Vul got nine months for assault: Dickie, Andy, and then Lee – not Lee Duffy. It was usually a merry night and the only trouble was from drunken families. One time when there was a big row, with plenty of fighting between the family members. One geezer faked a heart attack. The ambulance came and he was wheeled out with an oxygen mask on his face. Andy said to me that he didn't think the bloke was for real and sure enough, we found out later that he'd faked it. When I wasn't working, I was out drinking with the lads. For some reason I picked up this bewer – a lass – who I had known for a few years. She had a face a bit like a bulldog chewing a wasp. She'd also had the coil fitted, due to the size of her fanny – she could have had wall-to-wall carpets fitted in there! The next morning, our Tank picked me up and was shocked. He'd known her years as well and gasped, ‘What the fuck are you doing with her? She's a whore. I'm surprised at you. She's had more cock-ends than weekends.' I knew that already but when you are out every night, you just go with the flow. I was single and if there was any loose skirt at the end of the night that
looked half decent you don't turn your nose up at it, know what I mean.?

This lass worked at a nightclub, so I would always be in there getting loads of free drink with the lads. It was a place where I had lots and lots of fights. On one occasion, I was talking to a woman when I noticed, over the other side of the room, a bloke throwing his arms about like a windmill in a threatening manner. He was shouting something but I couldn't make it out because of the noise. He was with another bloke. I realised he was shouting at me, and excused myself to the woman and made my way over to the two men. I stopped to ask my friend Buller to watch my back. The thing is, people like this can't be talked to. I wasn't going to mess around with this crazed windmill and his sidekick, Don Quixote.

I hit the mouthy crazed windmill with a thumping right, a left, and a final right, all smack on the chin. He fell apart and was out for the count before he hit the deck. I turned to Don Quixote and he went off like the Disney cartoon character Speedy Gonzales. I eventually caught him and whacked him with a right, which didn't connect properly with its target, but was still severe enough to put him down. Fear kept this loon going, and he started scrambling under the tables in this packed club to get away from me – it was like a
Carry On
film! As the bouncers arrived, I was putting the boot into the plonker without much success. He was like a bumblebee on speed!

The doormen couldn't revive the other one and after about ten minutes, the ambulance rolled up. We were on the top floor of the club and the doormen had to carry him down the stairs while he was still unconscious. They wired his jaw up at the hospital. He drank through a straw for a couple of months. He later told someone that the punch he was hit with was like being hit with a sledgehammer. It turned out he had a reputation as a fighter, and was known as the hardest man in Wingate, a tough colliery village in County Durham. I had been talking to the smaller lad's ex-girlfriend, which had started the whole thing off. Buller quipped to me afterwards, ‘What did you want me to watch your back for? You were having a fucking laugh.'

What is it with boyfriends and their ex-girlfriends? Another night, I was talking to two sisters who I hadn't seen for a few years. One of their ex-boyfriends was hovering around looking for trouble. He thought I was trying to tap one of them up. He wanted a fight but, as I was enjoying my chat, I pretended to be scared of him and said, ‘No.' He grew another foot taller and his chest plumed out another six inches like a rooster. I finished my drink and said my goodbyes to the sisters before going up to him. His head collided with my fist; he was dropped down a peg or two and looked no more dangerous than a spring chicken. He was destroyed, but I couldn't resist putting the boot leather in as well
because he was a cheeky cunt. The bouncers came over and picked him up and threw him out of the club.

I had so many fights in this club that it started to become my own territory. Another fight that sticks out happened not long after the jaw-breaking incident. I was at the bar getting a drink when some geezer points his finger in my face and drawls, ‘Don't I know you?' He was looking snake eyed at me like a typical big-screen gangster. He had a ciggie in his mouth, and thought he looked rock hard. Getting well into the scene, I drawled back, ‘I don't know, but they call me Richy Horsley.' Clint Eastwood would have been proud as I then battered him with a left hook that landed with a strange dull thud. Mr Movie Gangster was stood there leaning against the bar and staring out into space – he was knocked out, but still standing up. ‘Hello, is there anyone in there?' I spoke again but never got a response so I walked away and left the drink. When he came round, he went to the hospital, and I was told afterwards that his jaw was broken in two places.

I got on well with most of my fellow bouncers, except an Irish bloke, who came to the town after doing six years behind bars for a stabbing. He was about 6ft 3in. For some reason, he wanted to build himself a reputation and started playing up to me. Obviously not the brightest kid in the class. I had a quiet word with him and told him to get in the toilets if he wanted to fight me. He had a good look into my intensely piercing
eyes and realised I was serious and croaked, ‘No.' I found out he'd only been out of prison a couple of weeks when he carved someone else up in Carlisle. He was currently waiting to go to the Crown Court. He had quickly married a girl he had just met to make himself look more respectable. But the judge saw through him, and added five years behind bars to his marriage sentence. Couldn't have happened to a nicer fella.

I started to work at a huge place in the town centre, which was split into two parts. There was a bar and a DJ downstairs, and another bar and disco upstairs. We looked after the whole shebang. I knew before I started to work there that I would be fighting all the time, as this place was an arena full of dude spark plugs. In my 18 months there I saw plenty of doormen come and go. On my first night, they told me about this bloke who comes in every week who wouldn't see his drinks off at closing time. And sure enough, on my first night he refused to leave. Every time he was asked to see his drink off he'd pick it up and wave ‘bye-bye' to his drink to ‘see it off'. Obviously a comedian. I walked up and told him to finish his drink, ‘… or I'm taking it away from you.' I don't like people taking the piss or liberties, so you have to be firm with them. So when the prick just sat there smirking at me, I reached over and grabbed his pint and poured it over his piss-pot sized head. Before he could move, I followed it up with a straight right that flattened the prick out of sight. His mates
shouted that they didn't want any trouble and left immediately, taking Mr Piss Pot to the hospital, where they found out I'd broken his nose, not to mention shattering his ego. Suffice to say, he never tried his little tricks again. The man did consider pressing charges but then thought better of it.

I had a fight one time with a lad on the stairs. The lad knew me from when I was young and thought he could take me. We started going hammer and tongs at it. I was trying to get my footing so I could get some leverage, but it was awkward. You see, the problem with being tall is that your centre of gravity is that much higher, so you can be easily put down if your equilibrium is compromised. But once I landed one on him, he went down. As he was laid across the stairs I cracked a couple more into him. The doormen at the top of the stairs were shouting, ‘Richy, he's had enough,' but I knew that already. You see, you had to have control as a bouncer, as there were so many cry-baby customers who would rat to the police if you so much as spilled their drink.