Bill Mordey dies

[pies4ever]

Bill Mordey dies
By Grantlee Kieza
April 24, 2004

BILL MORDEY, the colourful sportswriter who became Australia's greatest ever boxing promoter, died last night aged 67.

He was a character of laconic wit and roguish charm, a man who could have been played by Chips Rafferty and whose life read like something from the pen of Damon Runyon.

A self-confessed lair since childhood, Break Even Bill became one of the great figures of Australian sport and Henry Lawson or Banjo Paterson could not have told a better yarn as he held court, one hand clasped around a cigarette, the other nursing a bourbon and Coke.

Mordey wrote about rugby league, tennis, boxing and horse racing for more than 20 years but the fight game was always his great love and he decided to become a promoter after attending a bout I staged at Belmore Sports Ground in 1984 in conjunction with ARL boss Colin Love, Bulldogs chief Peter Moore and Jeff Fenech's trainer Johnny Lewis.

The fight saw Bulldogs hooker Billy Johnstone battle Australian middleweight champ Ritchie Roberts before a crowd of more than 4000.

Mordey was hooked and within a year he had bankrolled Jeff Fenech to the first of three world titles.

Mordey, was a star journalist for The Daily Mirror among a generation of great sportswriters, and he went on to become the publisher of Big League magazine and a media adviser to the NSW Rugby League before going into the fight game.

Mordey succeeded Hugh D McIntosh, who built Sydney Stadium in 1908, as Australia's most successful fight entrepreneur, drawing an Australian record crowd of 37,000 in drizzling rain to Melbourne's Princes Park to see Fenech fight Ghana's Azumah Nelson in 1992.

Under his guidance Jeff Harding and Kostya Tszyu also won world titles but the relationship with Tszyu ended in bitterness when Mordey sued his pig-tailed charge, winning more than $7million in damages after they split.

He also promoted other Australian boxing stars including Joe Bugner, Troy and Guy Waters, Lovemore Ndou, Shannan Taylor and Lester Ellis.

Mordey, who retired to his horse stud in the upper Hunter Valley, had been battling cancer for several months before being admitted to the Mater Hospital in Newcastle on Thursday. He passed away at 9.45 last night.

Peter Frilingos, The Daily Telegraph's chief league writer, said: "I started working at The Mirror in 1964 as the No.3 league writer behind Peter Muszkat and Bill.

"I worked with him until 1980 and everything I know about rugby league and journalism I learned from him. Bill was a champion bloke."

Ian Heads, another of Mordey's great peers, said: "In the whole story of sportswriting in Australia, Bill will be remembered as one of the great characters."

Mordey is survived by wife Gwenda, children Karen and Craig and grandchildren Aaron, Luke and Eloise.

He was just 13 when he had his first punt, wagering five shillings on Flight in the Melbourne Cup.

One of his cousins declared the horse unbeatable. It wasn't.

His first foray into gambling ended when the SP bookie - his aunt - gave Bill his money back. Over the next 40 years most of the bookies Bill battled weren't so forgiving, yet back in the mid-60s while working at The Mirror he won 10,000 quid - the equivalent of eight year's pay - on a horse called Best Card, owned by a syndicate that included a couple of Bill's uncles and Sydney Stadium boss Harry Miller as well as Joe Taylor, the former pug and king of Sydney's illegal casinos. Taylor was both a father figure and tutor in all things punting to the young journo.

Born at Campsie, in Sydney's inner west in 1936, Bill was raised by his mum Constance - better known as Maudy Mordey - after his dad died when Bill was seven.

When his mum could afford it she gave Bill thrupence to go to the Burwood Police Boys Club to learn boxing.

He had just one fight which was declared a draw as both boys were too tired to hit each other in round three.

Bill's uncle Jimmy Dundee fought the great Vic Patrick twice and took Bill to see his first fight at Sydney Stadium, where Hockey Bennell was headlining.

At 14 Bill left St Pat's school at Strathfield and at 15 was a racing cadet on The Sun. He once told me it was like handing a grenade to a baby.

As a punter and later a promoter, millions of dollars passed through Bill's hands but despite it he always maintained he only wanted one thing.

To Break Even.

The Daily Telegraph


cheers bryan..!!

[LeonMcS]

Just heard this on the evening news, a sad loss. I had the pleasure of a couple of phone calls with Bill when I was a spotty teenager, he gladly chatted away for a while with a perfect stranger.
R.I.P

[pies4ever]

Day of mourning for Mordey
FoxSports
By Adrian Warren
April 29, 2004

ONE of the world's premier boxing organisations today announced a day of mourning in memory of Bill Mordey, as Sydney prepared to give the successful promoter a massive send-off.

Several hundred mourners were expected to gather at Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral tomorrow morning for the funeral of Mordey, who passed away in a Newcastle Hospital last Friday night at the age of 67.

After a successful career as a sports journalist, Mordey became Australia's most successful boxing promoter, staging 24 world title bouts, most of them involving world champions Jeff Fenech, Jeff Harding and Kostya Tszyu.

"The World Boxing Council has declared tomorrow a day of mourning in memory of Bill Mordey in the 164-member countries of the WBC," Melbourne-based WBC ratings committee chairman Frank Quill said today.

"Bill was very well thought of by the WBC and it feels that he commanded a lot of respect and he's done a lot for boxing."

Among the mourners expected tomorrow is Mordey's first and most successful world champion Fenech, who won three world titles under the astute promoter's stewardship.

"I wouldn't have done what I done without him, not a chance, he was a unique man, a special man," Fenech said today.

"When it came to going all out for you, he would do it. If there something there that he said he was going to do, he did it."

A gregarious person who loved to chat, drink, smoke, joke and punt, Mordey prided himself on being able to mix with both ends of town.

His boxing career comprised of just a single amateur bout, but his savvy and street-wise negotiating enabled him to carve out a successful career in the notoriously difficult world of boxing promoting.

He earned the title Break Even Bill, though sometimes he did far better and at other times far worse than his nickname suggested.

"Probably the thing that I treasure most is a cheque for $15 from the Hordern Pavilion. That was all that was left after everything was paid, that keeps your feet on the ground," Mordy said back in 1990.

He caught the boxing bug early, recalling going to Leichhardt Stadium from the age of nine with the son of his uncle Jimmy Dundee, who was a NSW welterweight champion.

Together with Fenech and trainer Johnny Lewis, Mordey helped breath new life into the seemingly moribund figure of Australian boxing.

"My job is to wheel and deal. You have to manoeuvre fighters and then when the bell rings it's their job," was Mordey's succint summary of his boxing promotional duties.

He rarely branched out of boxing, though on one occasion he was asked if he was interested in presenting superstar singer Lionel Ritchie, who he thought was actually a fighter.

"Lionel Ritchie doesn't know how close he came into getting into a four rounder," joked Mordey.

He fell out with some of his most famous fighters including Fenech and Tszyu, but invariably patched things up.

Tszyu lost a court case to Mordey after he decided to join Vlad Warton in the mid 1990s, but they resolved their differences two years ago.

Mordey drifted away from the sport in the late 1990s and spent the last few years of his life on his horse farm at Singleton in the NSW Hunter Valley.

AAP