"I'd like to have a bet," said a sagacious American. "For heaven's sake what on? " asked his friend. "You never know. Anyway my old man always told me when I was a boy: always take the odds on a fight. It paid off over the ages." This was during the preliminary bouts, when the stadium was looking like the work of some decorative painter, Dufy perhaps. Just for a moment I had a faint flicker of optimism.
I had another when they were roaring Cooper on his way into the ring behind the Union Jack, and one last one when the entire crowd joined in the singing of God Save the Queen. You felt, such an extraordinary current of emotion that if only it could have been transmitted to Cooper something totally unexpected might have happened.
The introductions of celebrities, including Carpentier and Marciano brought a slightly comic element. Young man behind me complained bitterly about Billy Walker's appearance. "Why, have we got to have that commercial for hair cream?" Clay was behaving very civilised; he gave Terry Downes a handshake when he passed and smiled politely. Roar after roar of "Come on Henry boy, hang it on him!" but almost as soon as the fight started you knew more or less how it would be likely to finish.
Another sagacious American next to me says it might last seven rounds, just. In the-fourth there was just a moment when Clay turned and started yakking to the referee, when Cooper might conceivably have nailed him had he jumped in. But he was much too gentlemanly.
I was sitting fairly close to the ring but not close enough to see the punch that opened Cooper's eye. A knot of stubborn (enthusiasts round me" insisted that Clay had butted him and they kept hoping for a disqualification. No joy. It was a marvellous night for a fight to start with a strange multicoloured sky and scudding clouds. The ring, with its arched covering, looked like a Chinese pavilion. The ropes were bright electric blue.
There were the usual good-humoured crowd manifestations: sudden chants of "where's Diana Dors?" And complex harmonising of "sit down, my lords, sit down! " and the inevitable "why are we waiting?" The efficiency of the organisation was in some respects far from total.
The bars ran out of glasses, and the few seven elderly barmaids and barmen could only just cope with us. I found it impossible to get a programme that contained a list of the preliminary bouts. The closest to a fight that I got was between two anxiety-sufferers just behind me during a temporary blockage on the way to the seats.
It remained an electric night and we shambled off feeling very fond of Clay. A few wide boys shouted:"Oh, so you're drunk with power?" at a West Indian Undergound ticket collector who was keeping them at bay behind closed gates. He grinned cheerfully; the exercise of getting home by tube was a good deal more athletic than many fights.
