Paul Sykes... where is he now?...

[cannonball]

yeah, the Meade v Ferris KO was a belter, coulda counted to 50.

Just had a look at Jody Ballard's record and he retired in 1980, the same year as Sykes' last fight , a 1st round drubbing in Lagos against Ekwelum. Whilst Ballard was losing more than he was winning in the years Sykes was active (78-80), he was in decent company and was only stopped 4 times in 40 fights and would have handled Sykes, who struggled with Malpass x 2 and Conrad Tooker

The comment about the drab brown suits being all the rage made me smile

[Polidori]

yeah, the Meade v Ferris KO was a belter, coulda counted to 50.

Just had a look at Jody Ballard's record and he retired in 1980, the same year as Sykes' last fight , a 1st round drubbing in Lagos against Ekwelum. Whilst Ballard was losing more than he was winning in the years Sykes was active (78-80), he was in decent company and was only stopped 4 times in 40 fights and would have handled Sykes, who struggled with Malpass x 2 and Conrad Tooker

The comment about the drab brown suits being all the rage made me smile

It was horrible to see how he was convulsing on the canvas, he was never getting up poor sod.

Yes you're probably right about Sykes Vs Ballard, around the time of the Wilson fight Sykes may have had a chance against, but the Sykes who fought Tooker would definitely have been beaten, wonder why the fight didn't take place?

Late 70's/early 80's drab and brown was at its peak of popularity, look at this episode of the legendary Indoor League (Fred Trueman's cardigan is possibly the drabbest and brownest thing ever)



Well worth a watch this, the Cheese Skittles section is particularly thrilling.

[coneye]

So after 17.5 years and 404 posts whats the end result , i would say its

he was a hard man , who could and did beat the shite out of most men with the exception of other profesional fighters

He was also a bully a thug and according to rumors a rapist with homosexual tendencies , and if rumors are true a penchent for raping men whist in prison

He also liked young women and was known to bully his wife and kids ,

His parents alongside his wife and children were scared to death of him

He was also a liar , a braggart and a total pisshead .

He then went on to become a homless , pisshead who took to sleeping on the streets ,,

He ruined himself so much physicly the local kids used to piss on him when he was in his drunken stupors ,

Overall i say he ended up getting his just deserts , just unfortunate one of his victims did'nt come across him whilst he was in a drunken stupor and extract there revenge by shoving a red hot poker up his arse

I say you deserve what you give , and Karmas a bitch

Paul Sykes was a useless peice of shite

[bennie]

@Bennie

Just checked Ballard wasn't one of the famous five but he did meet Foreman in an exhibition in 1975.



No holding back from George

Yes, I was mistaken in assuming that Ballard was one of the five. My memory is not as sharp as yours. Ballard rings a bell with me somehow. He appeared on the Larry Holmes-Ken Norton card in Las Vegas in June 1978 and dropped a 10-round split decision to Spain's Alfredo Evangelista, which makes me wonder if Don King was lining up Ballard for a shot at Holmes as a 'soft' first challenger because it was Evangelista who got the shot instead.
I remember watching Holmes-Evangelista on World of Sport on a saturday afternoon. Evangelista was actually a decent fighter but he knew he didn't stand a chance against Holmes. He stuck around for a while to give the fans a show and then did an adequate job of diving in the seventh round.

[Polidori]

The memory wasn't that 'sharp' Bennie, I had to check myself (and I'd completely forgotten about Ballard fighting Evangelista)

I agree that the knockdowns ending Evangelista's challenge to Holmes were a little 'suspect' but they weren't as bad as Ossie Ocasio's

[Polidori]

So after 17.5 years and 404 posts whats the end result , i would say its

he was a hard man , who could and did beat the shite out of most men with the exception of other profesional fighters

He was also a bully a thug and according to rumors a rapist with homosexual tendencies , and if rumors are true a penchent for raping men whist in prison

He also liked young women and was known to bully his wife and kids ,

His parents alongside his wife and children were scared to death of him

He was also a liar , a braggart and a total pisshead .

He then went on to become a homless , pisshead who took to sleeping on the streets ,,

He ruined himself so much physicly the local kids used to piss on him when he was in his drunken stupors ,

Overall i say he ended up getting his just deserts , just unfortunate one of his victims did'nt come across him whilst he was in a drunken stupor and extract there revenge by shoving a red hot poker up his arse

I say you deserve what you give , and Karmas a bitch

Paul Sykes was a useless peice of shite

Can't argue with any of that mate, I wince with embarrassment now at my adulation/involvement with him years ago, in my defence I was only 16 the first time I saw him fight, (as a young boxing fan it was very exciting that 'Wakey' had its very own heavyweight 'contender') but as I got older I became more aware of his obnoxious and deviant behaviour (he punched me on the arm once and shaped up to me, just because I'd had a decent run as an amateur at the old White Rose club)

An utterly vile b*stard all told, and it pisses me off no end that Jamie Boyle the cartoon voiced, coke sniffing clown is stealing a living perpetuating the Sykes myth with his atrocious, badly written books.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Blimey, a thread that's been running 17 years!

It sounds like Sykes was a proper wrong-un.

As so often in these cases, I find myself wondering whether he was himself physically and/or sexually abused in his youth, because sadly, a very high proportion of times it's the case.

Definitely not a man you'd want to be around, especially in the prison showers if rumours are true.

[Polidori]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost) I think a number of factors caused this:

1. It was surrounded by colleries and a large percentage of the male work force were employed by them.

2. It was a 'rugby town' due to the then famous Wakefield Trinity.

3. It used to have more pubs per square mile than any town/city in the UK.

All in all it was a very 'macho' culture in the city, getting into a scrap at the weekend if you went out was almost inevitable. Always slightly behind the times as well, 77 - 80 when Punk/New Wave swept the UK, the youth of Wakey were still wearing Oxford Bags, Star Jumpers and listening to Slade/Sweet etc, and the three night clubs Dolly Grey's, Tiffany's and the surreal Heppy's who only catered for the Oxford Bag brigade.

John Keenan a well known music promoter in Leeds started putting on gigs at the Unity Hall, a regular feature of the first few gigs was the audience coming out only to be met by a huge gang of pissed up Wakey denizens wanting to bash 'the punks' they got bored of this after a while but the gigs were often ruined by the fearsome Goddard brothers, two local thugs who the Unity Hall drafted in as bouncers who cleared had nothing but contempt for the punters.

Horrible place altogether and I was more than happy to leave and move to Leeds when I went to college.

[Polidori]

In case anyone is unfamiliar with the 'Oxford Bag/Star Jumper' look.

[Fray Bentos]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost)

Who won? Hitting a lampost once would result in a L RTD for anyone normal!

[Polidori]

Who won? Hitting a lampost once would result in a L RTD for anyone normal!

He punched it with some force several times, until one of his cohorts led him away into a nearby pub (his hands were f*cked) next time I saw Fields he was walking round with a set of chrome hubcaps convinced he could 'get a fiver' for them.

A real 'character' just likes Sykes.

Joking apart though Fields was the most 'punch drunk' fighter I've ever encountered, he was barely comprehensible, always looked like he was walking on ice and he could go from rage to tears in seconds.

[bennie]

What a memory, what a post. "He was in a foul mood because of a terrible haircut..." Yes, Sykes had all the ability in the world, a big punch and a proper heavyweight build, but the man's temperament deserted him at birth. As you say, Sykes was scheduled to fight, according to Boxing News, Jody Ballard in Miami before his fight with Gardner and it's a shame really that it didn't happen. I believe Ballard is one of the unfortunate five who faced George Foreman on the same farcical night but I won't hold that against him and his record shows that he sticks around against Sykes and gives him a real sharpener for the Gardner shot. Gardner, of course, was managed by Terry Lawless, who whipped all his fighters into shape and kept them on the straight and narrow. George Francis was also good at handling the nutters (Frankie Lucas, Mugabi and even Conteh). If only they had got hold of Sykes...

Funny you should mention my memory, as you can easily deduce by the fact I saw Sykes box live I'm a person of 'mature years' and I now have that issue where I am able to recall events with great clarity from decades ago, but minutes after posting my essay I was completely unable to recall the name of a new colleague I'd been speaking to only yesterday.

It was really weird how Sykes was so p*ssed off with his haircut, every one who entered his dressing room was shown the offending hair and he then pulled down the top of his robe to show how the barber had even shaved the hair on his upper back, very odd.

He was completely off that night, I suspect as was often the case he had troubles elsewhere and the haircut was the final blow.

After the abysmal display against Tooker he did need a 'sharpener' but I think Tommy Miller and Manny Goodall realised he was going off the rails again so they went straight for the Gardner fight, everthing was wrong with his preparation for that fight, he came in too light, this crank conditioning guru (Dr something .. can't recall his name) had him doing sprints instead of roadwork and sniffing cans of oxygen, and his sparring partners were initially John Celebanski and Dave Owens, Goodall said he was going to arrange a top sparring partner to help get Sykes ready, who did he get? Victor Attivor a cagey, counterpunching, Lightheavy, hardly ideal for emulating Gardner.

As Gardner has been flattened in a round by Ibar Arrington and dropped in the first by the light punching Aird, Sykes should have simply gone out to try flatten him instead of boxing as he did.

It was rumoured that he bet his entire £20k purse on winning by KO butthis is probably apocryphal like much of Sykes back story.

Yes, Gardner was a slow starter. "Sailor" Ibar Arrington, as you say, flattened him with a big right, moments after referee Mike Jacobs had warned the American for slapping, and the light-punching Aird, buoyed up by his previous fine showing against Alfredo Evangelista, went out and dropped Gardner with another right, but Billy was never in the hunt from the third round, once Gardner got into his stride.
Gardner was not a banger but he threw so many shots - round after round - that he would sicken opponents like Aird, Paul Sykes, Rudi Gauwe and Ossie Ocasio, all of whom bailed out in various degrees of humiliation. Aird pulled himself out after five rounds, Sykes simply turned and quit, while Ocasio went down and stayed down from a jab, prompting a flood of angry letters from Boxing News readers, who never made the connection. Gardner's relentless punching even proved too much for legendary iron man Carmen Basilio, who climbed on to the ring apron, waving his arms In surrender, when Gardner fought American Greg Sorrentino at the Albert Hall in 1978. Basilio managed Sorrentino and had seen enough by the seventh round.
We really needed a British heavyweight champion when Gardner came along. Joe Bugner did hold the title but obviously had no interest in fighting the likes of Aird, Les Stevens or Denton Ruddock, so the title languished for a few years until Gardner picked up the vacant title against Aird and later, the European title against Belgium's Gauwe, but Jimmy Young and Michael Dokes proved too good for him at the next level.
Victor Attivor is a blast from the past. The Ghanaian out of London was a regular sparring partner of Chris Finnegan's and even fought Chris for real. He also scored a fine win over big-hitting Aussie Steve Aczel in Melbourne. The unbeaten Aczel, who had destroyed our own Maxie Smith in Manchester for the Commonwealth light-heavyweight title, went down and out in the second.

[Polidori]

The Arrington fight was hilarious, as you said the KO punch landed seconds after he was admonished, poor Gardner went down like he'd been shot, after being sparked like that it's remarkable how he went on to have such a decent career.

The Ocasio capitulation was shameless, the cover of BN showed him on the canvas and in the background you could see his seconds weren't even down the ring steps after the bell to start the round.

I spoke to Gardner after the Sykes fight and he told me that Sorrentino was the hardest fight he'd ever had.

There's a very brief clip of Attivor v Mundine on YT but even from that it's obvious he wasn't really an ideal sparring partner to prepare Sykes for the marauding Gardner.

Speaking of YT I check regularly to see if anyone has uploaded some of the heavyweight fights from the 70's/80's .. I'd love to see Gardner's old fights (particularly the Young fight which I missed at the time) Aird v Evangelista, the uncultured but exciting scraps of Stan McDermott, Joe Awome, Andy Palmer etc and the holy grail of Meade v McDermott which was supposed to be a classic brawl.

I don't think Aird v Evangelista was ever shown in the UK but the others were often shown on Grandstand the Saturday after a midweek show (the BBC must have these in the archives somewhere)

[Polidori]

The British Heavyweight title was in the doldrums for years around that time, after Bugner vacated and went off to the States they tried numerous times to match Aird v Dunn for the vacant title, at one point it was mooted for ... Barnsley Civic Hall (me and a bunch of lads from school were intending to go) but Dunn took a fight with Knoetze in South Africa and predictably got knocked out.

Shaun Doyle who was intending to put on the Aird v Dunn fight, promptly cancelled the event claiming that Dunn had rendered the fight 'worthless' prompting Dunn's retirement.

I've just checked on Wiki and there was a TWO year gap between Bugner beating Dunn and Aird v Gardner meeting for the vacant title.

The situation was even worse when Gardner retired, the BBBoC didn't even order a fight for the vacant title as they felt there was no viable match worthy of recognition.

Eventually they recognised a fight between Ferris and Aird (Ferris having already beaten Aird in an eliminator the year before)

And again almost another two year gap between Gardner v Sykes and Aird v Ferris.

[Polidori]

@Bennie

Speaking of Shaun Doyle/Barnsley Civic Hall I went to what was possibly the worst attended British title fight in history when he promoted Henry Rhiney v Billy Waith for the British Welterweight title.

Luton v Wales in Barnsley .. bizarre (terrible undercard as well)


Like the ill fated Aird v Dunn fight the enterprising Mr Doyie seemed to specialise in title fights no one else wanted, both Rhiney and Waith were highly skilled wily craftsmen who were never involved in exciting fights, Rhiney had lost several non title fights since winning the title and Waith was coming off a KO loss on the continent (I confess I had to check that) so Doyie ended up with the fight as the only bidder.

It was an interesting display of boxing from both with any real highlights, Rhiney had a superb jab and Waith's defense was superb in front of I'd say less than 200 people, including a small but vocal group who had come from Wales to support Waith.

[Polidori]

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

That's a interesting point, I mentioned the pits/pubs/rugby in my post but I never considered the lack of a uni/poly but you're right that does affect the cultural landscape of a city (we only had Whitwood Tech at Castleford)

After the colleries closed Wakefield was utterly moribund for years but with the popularity of Bretton Hall/Wakefield Sculpture Park and the Barbara Hepworth Gallery it's trying to reinvent itself as an 'arty/bohemian enclave'

God luck

[Polidori]

Let's have another taste of late 70's Northern 'culture' with Indoor League



Interesting fact, Richard Dunn was a big fan of IL and could often be spotted in the audience.

[Polidori]

And in case your all wondering about that stirring intro music:

[mickey1975]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost) I think a number of factors caused this:

1. It was surrounded by colleries and a large percentage of the male work force were employed by them.

2. It was a 'rugby town' due to the then famous Wakefield Trinity.

3. It used to have more pubs per square mile than any town/city in the UK.

All in all it was a very 'macho' culture in the city, getting into a scrap at the weekend if you went out was almost inevitable. Always slightly behind the times as well, 77 - 80 when Punk/New Wave swept the UK, the youth of Wakey were still wearing Oxford Bags, Star Jumpers and listening to Slade/Sweet etc, and the three night clubs Dolly Grey's, Tiffany's and the surreal Heppy's who only catered for the Oxford Bag brigade.

John Keenan a well known music promoter in Leeds started putting on gigs at the Unity Hall, a regular feature of the first few gigs was the audience coming out only to be met by a huge gang of pissed up Wakey denizens wanting to bash 'the punks' they got bored of this after a while but the gigs were often ruined by the fearsome Goddard brothers, two local thugs who the Unity Hall drafted in as bouncers who cleared had nothing but contempt for the punters.

Horrible place altogether and I was more than happy to leave and move to Leeds when I went to college.

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

I was in a quite good school Rugby league team for my school. We always got far in the Yorkshire cup, about under 15's. If you got one of those teams away, you knew it was a rough day out. The parents would start on our parents if they were getting beat. And that was just the women.
Featherstone were the worst. They actually turned the lights off in our changing room and attacked us.

[Polidori]

@mercman

Do ever have the pleasure of attending the boxing shows at Painthorpe Country Club in Crigglestone?

[coneye]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost) I think a number of factors caused this:

1. It was surrounded by colleries and a large percentage of the male work force were employed by them.

2. It was a 'rugby town' due to the then famous Wakefield Trinity.

3. It used to have more pubs per square mile than any town/city in the UK.

All in all it was a very 'macho' culture in the city, getting into a scrap at the weekend if you went out was almost inevitable. Always slightly behind the times as well, 77 - 80 when Punk/New Wave swept the UK, the youth of Wakey were still wearing Oxford Bags, Star Jumpers and listening to Slade/Sweet etc, and the three night clubs Dolly Grey's, Tiffany's and the surreal Heppy's who only catered for the Oxford Bag brigade.

John Keenan a well known music promoter in Leeds started putting on gigs at the Unity Hall, a regular feature of the first few gigs was the audience coming out only to be met by a huge gang of pissed up Wakey denizens wanting to bash 'the punks' they got bored of this after a while but the gigs were often ruined by the fearsome Goddard brothers, two local thugs who the Unity Hall drafted in as bouncers who cleared had nothing but contempt for the punters.

Horrible place altogether and I was more than happy to leave and move to Leeds when I went to college.

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

I was in a quite good school Rugby league team for my school. We always got far in the Yorkshire cup, about under 15's. If you got one of those teams away, you knew it was a rough day out. The parents would start on our parents if they were getting beat. And that was just the women.
Featherstone were the worst. They actually turned the lights off in our changing room and attacked us.

Who won

[jamesmcdonnell]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost) I think a number of factors caused this:

1. It was surrounded by colleries and a large percentage of the male work force were employed by them.

2. It was a 'rugby town' due to the then famous Wakefield Trinity.

3. It used to have more pubs per square mile than any town/city in the UK.

All in all it was a very 'macho' culture in the city, getting into a scrap at the weekend if you went out was almost inevitable. Always slightly behind the times as well, 77 - 80 when Punk/New Wave swept the UK, the youth of Wakey were still wearing Oxford Bags, Star Jumpers and listening to Slade/Sweet etc, and the three night clubs Dolly Grey's, Tiffany's and the surreal Heppy's who only catered for the Oxford Bag brigade.

John Keenan a well known music promoter in Leeds started putting on gigs at the Unity Hall, a regular feature of the first few gigs was the audience coming out only to be met by a huge gang of pissed up Wakey denizens wanting to bash 'the punks' they got bored of this after a while but the gigs were often ruined by the fearsome Goddard brothers, two local thugs who the Unity Hall drafted in as bouncers who cleared had nothing but contempt for the punters.

Horrible place altogether and I was more than happy to leave and move to Leeds when I went to college.

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

One of my best mates parents split up when he was 10, and his mum relocated him from Leafy Putney, where they'd lived in a nice house and he went to a good school, to Doncaster, where they moved into a council estate and he went to a local comprehensive.

He talks about those days with some trepidation, and he basically said it was like prison, you had to fight the minute someone started on you, otherwise you'd get battered by all and sundry.

He said friday nights was like a cross between the wild west and the film running man, and that it was pretty much standard that you'd end the night with a punch up outside a kebab shop or other such place.

Small town Britain's always been rough as arseholes.

People talk about London being dangerous, but it really isn't, it's soft as shite down here, unless you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you're involved with the wrong people, the chances of you being mugged, stabbed or beat up are really incredibly low.

[Fray Bentos]

Wakefield seemed to produce more than its fair share of hardmen/deviants/nutters (before Sykes we had Ernie Field who I once saw fighting a lampost) I think a number of factors caused this:

1. It was surrounded by colleries and a large percentage of the male work force were employed by them.

2. It was a 'rugby town' due to the then famous Wakefield Trinity.

3. It used to have more pubs per square mile than any town/city in the UK.

All in all it was a very 'macho' culture in the city, getting into a scrap at the weekend if you went out was almost inevitable. Always slightly behind the times as well, 77 - 80 when Punk/New Wave swept the UK, the youth of Wakey were still wearing Oxford Bags, Star Jumpers and listening to Slade/Sweet etc, and the three night clubs Dolly Grey's, Tiffany's and the surreal Heppy's who only catered for the Oxford Bag brigade.

John Keenan a well known music promoter in Leeds started putting on gigs at the Unity Hall, a regular feature of the first few gigs was the audience coming out only to be met by a huge gang of pissed up Wakey denizens wanting to bash 'the punks' they got bored of this after a while but the gigs were often ruined by the fearsome Goddard brothers, two local thugs who the Unity Hall drafted in as bouncers who cleared had nothing but contempt for the punters.

Horrible place altogether and I was more than happy to leave and move to Leeds when I went to college.

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

I was in a quite good school Rugby league team for my school. We always got far in the Yorkshire cup, about under 15's. If you got one of those teams away, you knew it was a rough day out. The parents would start on our parents if they were getting beat. And that was just the women.
Featherstone were the worst. They actually turned the lights off in our changing room and attacked us.

West Yorkshire and all those amateur teams and their mad relatives and friends who all turn out with their pitbulls, alsatians and rottweilers - had a mate who ran clear to score a try and some pudendum on the sidelines set their rottweiler onto him and it went flying for him and he just threw the ball in the air and ran right off the pitch!

[jamesmcdonnell]

Those old West Riding towns - Wakefield, Pontefract, Doncaster, etc. were like that. Very macho and backward-looking in many ways.

Punk and New Wave was never really a thing in those places, they seemed to go from Northern Soul to Disco without anything in between. I think part of it was they never had a university or poly so were always cut off from wider social trends.

Turned out plenty of boxers though over the years.

One of my best mates parents split up when he was 10, and his mum relocated him from Leafy Putney, where they'd lived in a nice house and he went to a good school, to Doncaster, where they moved into a council estate and he went to a local comprehensive.

He talks about those days with some trepidation, and he basically said it was like prison, you had to fight the minute someone started on you, otherwise you'd get battered by all and sundry.

He said friday nights was like a cross between the wild west and the film running man, and that it was pretty much standard that you'd end the night with a punch up outside a kebab shop or other such place.

Small town Britain's always been rough as arseholes.

People talk about London being dangerous, but it really isn't, it's soft as shite down here, unless you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you're involved with the wrong people, the chances of you being mugged, stabbed or beat up are really incredibly low.

Yeah, agree. Doncaster is a rough hole and you've got far more chance of getting attacked in somewhere like that than in much of London. Difference is, it's usually a kicking, knives and guns especially are rare. Obviously, London is different in that respect.

I have to say, the only area of London, in which I was genuinely afraid for myself, was King's Cross, back before it was all done up - that are was a cesspool of the dregs of humanity, pickpockets, muggers, junkies, prostitues and pimps, it was genuinely worrying if you walked through there late at night as the WQ (Wrong 'un Quotient) was higher than anywhere else in London. The pimps seemed to be the worst, as they were generally very aggressive if you came anywhere near them, and they constantly prowled the streets looking for any perceived threats to their livelihood.

I used to travel around other supposed black spots for crime, Harlseden, Neasden, Peckham , Clapton, Streatham , etc and never really felt likely anything was going to happen to me, unless I chose to get involved or hung around somewhere where something was happening too long.

East Greenwich, Plumstead, Woolwich used to have a bit of a vibe too, really run down with a lot of street action.

[Old bones Ian]

Oddly when growing up on Isle of Wight at pub age it was territorial with towns , so if you went to another town for a drink you went in a group and usually there was a fight or some trouble.
When I moved to London as a wet behind the ears country boy I never had a fight for a year found it no bother.
I did get the mother of all beatings when in the wrong place at wrong time in Bow , but that was me trying to pull a guy up to stop him being beaten by a group of blokes and then they turned on me. But all in all I was much more likely to have a fight in the sunny Isle of Wight than London.