The bittersweet story of Larry Gains, one of boxing’s greatest heavyweights who was shamefully denied world title chance

IN A ceremony in Essex on December 12 a blue plaque will be unveiled in memory of Larry Gains, who died 41 years ago.

The name Gains will mean little to fight fans — yet he was one of the greatest and most popular heavyweights ever to grace British rings.

Gains’ exceptional story is a bitter-sweet saga.

Born in Toronto in 1900, the black Canadian spent six weeks on a cattle ship sailing to England seeking fame and fortune back in 1923.

After making his pro debut in London — the start of his exceptional 146-fight career — he based himself in Paris and became a close friend of the American writer Ernest Hemingway, then a newspaper reporter.

He fought all over Europe, forging a huge reputation — including a two-round KO of future world champion Max Schmeling.

In 1930, he settled in Leicester. He was idolised by the locals who treated him as one of their own.

A crowd of 30,000 packed Leicester’s Welford Road rugby ground to see him KO Phil Scott and win the British Empire title in 1931.

He fought in front of huge crowds in London — there was 70,000 at the White City Stadium to see him outpoint Primo Carnera before the Italian became world champ.

Whenever Gains returned to Leicester after winning a big fight he would be met off the train by vast numbers led by the mayor and paraded through the streets.

But Gains was in his prime in the most deplorably dishonourable 22 years in boxing’s long history.

Shamefully Gains was never allowed to challenge for the world heavyweight championship, though more than capable of winning.

He was the victim of the iniquitous colour bar at the time which prevented black boxers from competing for the richest prize in sport.

That poisonous doctrine lasted from the moment Jack Johnson was defeated by Jess Willard in 1915 to when the ‘Brown Bomber’ Joe Louis began his illustrious professional reign in 1937.

Gains would have beaten Schmeling and Carnera a second time, along with Jack Sharkey, Max Baer and James J. Braddock, the other world champs in the 1930s.

But the racial prejudice of that era was deep-rooted.

In a letter Gains wrote to Hemingway in 1925 — which inexplicably ended up in Boston’s JFK museum — he offered to spar with world champion Jack Dempsey.

But the Manassa Mauler turned him down as — in his words — he refused to train with “coloured men”.

Gains consoled himself with being Canadian champion and twice being crowned the “coloured world heavyweight champion”.

His last fight was in 1942 as he later joined the Army and spent the Second World War as a Sergeant Major and physical training instructor.

I met him several times when he was President of the London Ex-Boxers Association.

Always immaculately dressed in a suit, he was a man of great dignity.

What impressed me the most — despite the humiliation he suffered — was that Gains didn’t bear grudges.

Before he died of a heart attack aged 82 in 1983 he said: “For me the world title was always the impossible dream, the unreachable star.

“The politics of the day was against it but I have no bitterness or regrets.”

Gains’ descendants will gather at the Shoeburyness Hotel — his training camp was in the Essex seaside town — for the unveiling of the plaque in honour of him.

His great-great grandson Michael Gains, who got the OK for the initiative, said: “I felt his amazing life deserved permanent recognition.”

Jimmy Cannon, a leading New York sportswriter once said of Joe Louis: “He was a credit to his race — the human race”.

That judgement equally applies to Larry Gains.