jack randall, the irishman, whom george borrow describes as the king of the light-weights, was a few pounds over the ten stone which is the generally recognised light-weight limit of to-day. he was a frank-faced, open-hearted fellow, a good and chivalrous sportsman, strong-willed, courageous, and by no means a fool. in the year 1818 he was at the height of his fame, but was anxious to fight one or two more battles, before taking the customary tavern and retiring. and a match was accordingly made with ned turner to take place on crawley downs on december 5th of that year for ￡100 a side. both in height, weight, and age, the men were evenly matched. the betting was in favour of randall. turner’s seconds were tom owen and bill richmond, the black; randall’s, tom oliver and white.
as so often happened in the days of bare knuckles, the men were a long time making up their minds to begin, and five minutes went by before the first blow was struck. then as now, boxers realised the prime importance of a good start, of landing, if possible, a terrific and discouraging smasher in the first round. many fights have been won like that. in this battle the first two rounds occupied twenty minutes. but in the second randall landed more often and much the harder of the two. they boxed at long range, and each seemed to be mortally afraid of the other, or rather, to respect him. once a blow was struck by either, his opponent hastened to return it with all speed and due interest. in the third round the spectators and even the men’s seconds became impatient. the round lasted thirteen minutes, and the pauses between bouts of fighting were so protracted that onlookers suggested to tom owen that he might light his pipe, 61 whilst tom cribb asked for his night-cap and told his neighbours to wake him up when the fighting started again. each was determined to give the other no unnecessary chance. when they did get going both boxed extremely well. randall went mainly for the body at first, and turner drew blood from the irishman’s mouth and nose. at the end of the sixth round and about an hour from the start, turner was showing signs of weariness. he lowered his hands whenever randall was out of reach, and he was bleeding profusely.
they now began to fight hard. most rounds ended in a throw, at which randall as a rule showed himself the stronger. in the eleventh round it was seen that randall was rather the better, though backers were not yet lacking for his opponent. but presently turner was worked round so that the sun was in his eyes, and randall put in a terrific hit on the face. turner replied with a hard right in the stomach. then turner scored the more hits in a fierce rally, but these were not hard enough to do a great deal of damage.
the first knock-down blow came from randall in the thirteenth round. he shot in a hard left which sent turner’s head back and then immediately repeated it, whereupon turner fell. he was bleeding a good deal. the irishman hit less now at the body, finding turner’s defence for his head easier to break through. in the sixteenth round turner hit several times but weakly; in the seventeenth, however, he seized randall and threw him clean out of the ring. but the effort was a costly one: it did little harm to randall, whilst turner stood leaning against the ropes panting. randall came up for the next round comparatively fresh, and before long he knocked turner down again.
two hours had been passed by the time twenty-four rounds had been fought. there were ten more rounds and these only occupied twenty minutes. the reason was that turner was losing strength rapidly, and randall knocked or threw him down without much trouble. turner’s pluck was magnificent. round after round he got the worst of it, but came up each time with apparent confidence and a smile upon his bruised and bleeding 62 face. in the twenty-seventh round turner hurled himself at his opponent and hit him so hard as to drive him right away, though without causing his downfall. randall was now refreshed by a pull at the brandy-flask, but turner was yet able to stop his best blows and to give good ones in return. but the tide of the battle had set definitely against him. randall ended one round by knocking him down with a tremendous body-blow and the next by a throw.
when turner came quite jauntily from his second’s knee for the thirty-first round, the crowd began to call out: “take him away: he’s too game.” but he went on and randall finished the bout with another body-blow. some of the onlookers begged ned to give in at the end of the thirty-second, but he shook his head. the next round was very short, and turner was severely knocked down. again the cry was raised: “don’t let him fight any more.” however, he came up, full of pluck and perfectly cool, for the thirty-fourth, and did his best to keep randall away. the irishman, however, sent in several blows, the last of which on the side of turner’s head, knocked him down so that he could not come up at the call of time.
the crowd pressed round randall in congratulation, but he pushed them away and went across to turner to shake hands with perfect good friendship. turner, sick at heart and hurt as he was, patted randall on the back. never was there less ill-feeling between any two men.
randall is said to have been a natural fighter in the most literal sense, never having taken a single lesson, but buying his experience solely in the ring.
the nonpareil, as he was called, had two more fights before finally retiring from the prize-ring. both of these were with the baker, jack martin: whom he first defeated in nineteen rounds and fifty minutes, and then in one round of eight and a half minutes. martin’s very long reach proved a difficulty to randall in the first fight, for though his rushing and slogging were very powerful and not devoid of skill, his footwork was clumsy and he had no idea of side-stepping or ducking away from the baker’s 63 long arms. but in each of these fights he proved that martin’s body was weak, and he forced himself in to close fighting and hammered his man about the ribs and stomach until the rigid guard he kept up to protect his head was weakened or lowered. martin was very plucky, but besides the natural advantage of reach, he was nearly a stone the heavier of the two; so that the highest credit is due to the irishman for his signal defeat of him.
for some years randall kept the hole in the wall, in chancery lane, but like many another fighter, he died whilst still a young man, in 1828.
