The only thing that wasn't straight about Henry Cooper was his broken nose. Could you say as much about ANY of today's sports 'heroes'?

By MATTHEW ENGEL
Updated: 21:07 EST, 6 May 2011

This has been a difficult year for those of us in what is normally called middle age — i.e. probably past half-time and kicking uphill and into the wind from now on.

The sporting heroes of our youth have been reaching the full-time whistle with alarming regularity. This year alone we have lost the great centre-forward Nat Lofthouse and the cricketers Trevor Bailey and Fred Titmus. Now Sir Henry Cooper has gone, aged 76.

None of these men made vast riches from their sporting success. Indeed, Bailey played as an amateur — though there were always ways round that little technicality.

Best ever? Henry Cooper was Britain's greatest heavyweight - and came from a time when boxing meant something to everyone - and sport wasn't infected by greed

Cooper did OK, at least until he lost his money-pot in the Lloyd’s insurance meltdown two decades ago. But then he was one of the most famous men in Britain, as recognisable in the Sixties as the Prime Minister or a Beatle. More than that, he was immensely popular.

This was partly because he was the best British heavyweight boxer of his era — perhaps of any era — at a time when heavyweight boxing meant something. Even my mum probably knew who the world champ was. Nowadays, without double-checking, I couldn’t name with confidence a solitary professional boxer currently plying his trade, let alone tell you how many jokers hold different versions of the world heavyweight title. Is George Foreman still fighting in his 60s? Very likely. The sport turned into a farce long ago.

Of course, it was always dangerous. Look at the poor old Greatest, Muhammad Ali, turned into a shambling wreck by one too many blows to the head. And the whiff of corruption was never far away.

But it was elevated by some of the men drawn to the fight game as their way out of backgrounds where skill with their fists might easily have led them in other directions. Henry Cooper, and his identical twin George, were high on that list. What made ’Enery so important?

Well, for a start, he was a terrific boxer. The moment ’Enery’s ’Ammer floored Ali (then still known as Cassius Clay) is one of the all-time great British sporting moments. But, in the end, he wasn’t that terrific. He never did beat Ali: his face was always just that bit vulnerable. He never did become world champion. And I suppose, because we’re British, deep down we preferred him that way.

Furthermore, he was perceived, in his fighting days and forever after, as a very nice, accessible human being. This has been reflected since he died by the tributes from those who knew him well.

‘A life which brought dignified validation to boxing,’ said the Mail’s Jeff Powell.

‘If he were offered £10,000 to make an after-dinner speech, and it clashed with an unpaid appearance at a boys’ club when he had given his word that he would attend, Henry would unhesitatingly refuse the fat cheque and be there for the youngsters,’ said commentator John Rawling. ‘He was a good boxer but an outstanding man.’

Great British sporting moment: Cooper sending Cassius Clay to the canvas during 1963 was the highlight of a career that did not bring a world title - but did result in national affection

‘He was one of the loveliest blokes to cross my path,’ recalled the long-time sports writer Norman Giller. ‘Rudyard Kipling could have had no better example for treating the imposters of triumph and disaster the same. And he truly was a man, my son.’

Knighthood may not be followed by sainthood — Cooper never did forgive referee Harry Gibbs for diddling him out of his British and European titles against Joe Bugner in his final fight. He was scathing about the British boxers who followed him, and eventually gave up broadcasting on fights because he was so appalled by the likes of Frank Bruno, whose PR skills exceeded their ringcraft. And, when cornered, he could be sharp rather than charming. In a TV debate against the anti-boxing campaigner Edith Summerskill, she said: ‘Mr Cooper, have you looked in the mirror and seen the state of your nose?’ ‘Well, have you?’ he replied. ‘Boxing’s my excuse. What’s yours?’ But most people would be with him on all of those.

He was an exceptional representative of an exceptional generation. They saw themselves as the lucky ones. Those born a few years earlier had their prime sporting years eaten up by the World War II. When Cooper and Bailey and Titmus and Lofthouse reached their prime in the Fifties, the privations of the previous decade were easing and the nation was hungry for sporting heroes.

But they had been kids during the war; National Service was inevitable; and no one had to tell them it was a privilege to be paid to play sport, even if the money was paltry, even if it was inside a ring.

Titmus played county cricket for Middlesex in five separate decades: his first match in 1949, the last in 1982. I remember sitting with him outside the pavilion at Uxbridge during one of his final games and I asked about his team-mates when he first broke into the side as a 16-year-old, men like Denis Compton and Bill Edrich DFC.

Nobody had to tell the likes of Fred Titmus (centre) that it was a privilege to be paid money to play sport - and they were not resentful that their best sporting years were lost to the War

Did he think they were resentful that their best sporting years had been lost to wartime? He looked at me as if I were mad. ‘They wouldn’t have thought about it,’ he replied. ‘That was how things were.’ In 1948, professionals selected to represent England against Don Bradman’s Australians received £75 (plus third-class rail fare) per five-day Test match. The Marylebone Cricket Club, who then ruled the game, graciously agreed to pay their hotel bill, excluding drinks — wives, let alone girlfriends, emphatically not included.

By the time Titmus made his Test match debut in 1955, England players had been elevated to the first-class carriage on the train, but the match fee was still £75 — worth £1,500 at today’s prices, but not exactly star turn wages. Professional footballers, meanwhile, including the greatest like Johnny Haynes, were paid a maximum £20 a week until 1961.

The most horrendous stories came from rugby union, where administrators might even refuse to let their players have an extra pair of socks, so that one Scottish international reputedly stuck blue paint on his legs to disguise the holes.

Cooper did better than that. He was paid £60,000 for his second fight against Ali, for the world title in 1966, though he said tax took all but £14,000 of that.

And the state-of-the-art preparation methods of the time were primeval. ‘We never wore trainers, we only had plimsolls,’ he said in an interview just before he died. ‘They were no good for running in. We never knew we were knackering our knees.’ Luckily for him, not much went askew apart from his knees and his nose.

Were these sportsmen resentful? I reckon they were, but in a semi-conscious kind of way, like French peasants before the storming of the Bastille. No one had yet planted the thought that they didn’t have to be splashed by mud every time a nobleman’s carriage passed by.

Maharajah: If people who pay to see Wayne Rooney started seeing sport as sport, then perhaps the Manchester United striker may have a little grace and gratitude

What about those who cheered them on? Did we mind? Television was in its infancy: a single channel until 1955; and Cooper boxed and bled in black-and-white until 1967. The chance to watch top-class live sport of any kind was a treat. And as TV techniques developed, it became a sumptuous one. I don’t remember anyone ever suggesting that they should have a Sky-given right to watch racing from Australia or Cage Wrestling or the World Bass Fishing Championship at 4am.

It has been a long journey for sports enthusiasts over the past half century, as it has been for the players: from £20-a-week Haynes to £250,000-a-week Wayne Rooney. Is our world a better place?

No one can ever want to go back to great sportsmen being forced into third-class train carriages or tattered socks. But somewhere between ’Enery’s old plimsolls and footballers’ mansions, something has been lost.

And the biggest loss is a sense of perspective. The technology has outgrown the subject matter. Does it really matter if a batsman is sometimes given not out when the ball might have just shaved a stump? Or even if a goal gets allowed or disallowed incorrectly?

Sport is played between fallible human beings and the decisions should be made by fallible human beings. They need to have the skills to match the occasion and integrity above all.

Cooper’s grudge against Harry Gibbs was not that he made a mistake, but that he was convinced Gibbs was got at. He reckoned promoter Harry Levene wanted Bugner, the younger man, to win because that would be better for future business.

Sport must be as fair as possible, but if the people who pay the money that allows Rooney to live like a maharajah could start seeing sport as sport . . . then the likes of Rooney might just discover a little grace and gratitude.

Many of today’s top sports personalities do perform the kind of charitable work that was second nature to men like Henry Cooper. But one does have the uneasy feeling a lot of them do it because their advisers — in between updating them on the latest tax dodges — tell them it would be good for their image.

In the past week, I have seen one sporting champion as brilliant and genuine and modest and unspoiled by success as anyone from the Fifties. His name is Frankel. Unfortunately, he is three years old, has four legs and last Saturday won the 2,000 Guineas.

When we consider those with two legs, the words of Paul Simon spring to mind: ‘Where have you gone, Joe di Maggio?’

Fred Titmus, Trevor Bailey, Nat Lofthouse, Henry Cooper . . . a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.