Saturday night's welterweight showdown between Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan at the SSE Arena in Belfast is rightly being hailed as the greatest all Irish pro fight in a long, long time.

Those of us old enough to remember it will go back over 62 years for the classic between Freddie Gilroy and Johnny Caldwell — two locals who were born just a couple of miles apart.

That was a fight that drew a 15,000 crowd to a venue just down the road from tonight’s one, the Kings Hall.

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I first became friends with Gilroy after a 20th anniversary feature I did with him and Caldwell for the ill-fated Daily News in 1982, but I had been following him since I was a nipper. He was my first boxing hero.

The pair had both won bronze medals at the 1956 Olympics.

Gilroy would make his pro debut in February 1957 but Caldwell, two years younger, would wait another year before making the switch, adding a second national title in 1957 by outpointing Peter Lavery.

Their professional careers followed parallel courses and Caldwell’s tenth fight was significant.

In only his third pro outing in Belfast (the others had been in Glasgow after he signed with local bookie Sammy Docherty), he stopped Francisco Carreno from Spain in four rounds in the Kings Hall.

Gilroy, on his 23rd birthday, brought his record to 15-0 by knocking out Jacques Colomb from France in six rounds.

On the same card, Olympic silver medallist Fred Tiedt made a successful pro debut by outpointing George Davis from Nigeria over six rounds.

That show, promoted by George Connell in March 1959, was the first and only show in the entire history of boxing that had three Olympic medallists from Ireland on it.

By March 1960, Gilroy had a 21-0 record and Caldwell was 16-0, and the following month, despite suffering from a head cold, Gilroy unwisely went through with a bout against Ignacio Pina from Mexico in Belle Vue in Manchester and suffered a shock points loss.

Some three decades later, I was having a drink with him in the residents bar in the Europa Hotel in Belfast after a Dave McAuley world title fight in the early 1990s and the Pina fight came into the conversation.

Freddie Gilroy, it has to be noted, was the one who really attracted me to boxing as distinct from my father, not forcing but perhaps luring me into it.

Gilroy was my first real ring hero so I related to him the story of the then ten-year-old kid, listening to a live BBC radio broadcast of the fight, who cried when the 25-year-old Pina was declared the winner over his fellow southpaw.

“You actually cried?” asked Freddie.

“Literally,” I replied.

“That made two of us,” said Freddie.

Two years later, Gilroy was British and Commonwealth champion and retained his titles with a 12th round knockout against Billy Raffert.

Almost immediately the clamour for a Belfast derby became a crescendo.

Legendary London promoter Jack Solomons, the co-promoter along with George Connell, flew into Dublin on May 1 and the pair inspected a trio of venues, Tolka Park, Dalymount Park and Lansdowne Road, as an initial possibility was to stage the fight by the Liffey.

The bout was being floated as being for the vacant Irish title.

The idea of Gilroy defending the British and Commonwealth titles in the Republic was considered a non starter at the time.

Later that afternoon, after being driven to Belfast, Solomons and Connell formally announced the fight at a press conference, although the precise date and venue remained undisclosed.

Three days later, at another press conference, both were confirmed — the Kings Hall in Belfast on June 29, the eve of what was the inaugeral Irish Sweeps Derby at the Curragh.

Gilroy, however, insisted on a warm-up fight and fought former Caldwell victim Rene Libeer at the Empire Pool in London on June 5, just over three weeks before the big showdown.

Gilroy beat Libeer unimpressively and injured some bones in his right hand in the process; he was ordered to take three months rest and the big fight was postponed to October 20.

That turned out to be a decidedly fortuitous switch for yours truly.

It was the night before my 13th birthday and a ringside seat — costing six guineas — was the parental present.

Earlier that afternoon, Northern Ireland had been beaten 3-1 at Windsor Park by England and, reading the match report in Ireland’s Saturday Night — the weekly sports paper produced by the Belfast Telegraph from 1894 until 2008 — when we arrived in the Kings Hall brought total confusion.

Scoring legend Jimmy Greaves had netted the first for the visitors then Hugh Barr, from Coventry City, levelled for the home team.

Then the weirdness started: Mike O’Grady, who it said played with Huddersfield Town, scored twice.

It had to be a mistake; how could a guy named O’Grady score for England?

In self defence, I was still in my pre teenage days, if only for a matter of hours!

The fight didn’t match expectations... it exceeded them many times over as both men became out-an-out warriors.

A southpaw, Gilroy had Caldwell on the floor in the opening round when a supremely accurate jab was followed by lefts to the head and body, but the setback seemed to only drive Caldwell to further effort.

Late in the third he buckled Gilroy’s knees with a chopping right.

The real turning point came midway through the eighth round when first and accidental clash of heads and then a stinging
jab from Gilroy opened cuts over each of Caldwell’s eyes.

He battled ferociously in the ninth but to no avail … at the end of a torrid session, local referee Andrew Smyth ruled a disconsolate Caldwell unable to continue.

Security, clearly, was pretty casual in those days and, being just a nipper, I had no difficulty squeezing my way into the
dressingroom area.

There, in a corridor, I witnessed a sight that remains with me to this day.

Ahead of me is a circle of perhaps two dozen men, with the one who was the centre of their attention repeatedly shouting “look what I’ve got!”.

The Nipper worked his way through them until he was directly in front of the main man.

He was holding one of those old Sweet Afton tins that held 50 cigarettes — a popular Christmas present at the time.

He had the lip up and the base of the tin appeared to be covered with water.

But it wasn’t water.

It was beads of perspiration that he had scraped off Caldwell with the lid.

The man was elderly — well, he may perhaps just have been in his mid or late forties, but to The Nipper he was elderly.

All the years since then, whenever the Gilroy and Caldwell classic comes to mind, I think fo him and wonder what happened to him and his tin of sweat beads.

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