From racist bans to lion-tamer fighters: the wild history of Britain’s unsung Black boxing superstars

The first Black British boxing superstars … (clockwise from top left) Tom Molineaux, Hezekiah Moscow, James Wharton, Bill Richmond and Len Johnson. Composite: Getty, Nat Archives, NPG, Shutterstock

For many people, the story of Black British boxing starts with the disgraceful scenes that took place at Wembley Arena in September 1980.

Bottles and racist abuse rained down on Black American boxer Marvin Hagler after beating Alan Minter, a white British fighter. It was an ignominious end to a match whose ugly buildup involved race-based taunts, and which commentator Harry Carpenter described as the “low point of my many years at British ringsides”.