BEHIND a pub in the north of Hampshire flows the river Blackwater, borderline between the county and its next door neighbour, Surrey.

It was in a meadow here, on April 17, 1860, that was enacted the last great battle of the golden age of pugilism, a fight so famous that it echoed round the world.

Ballads were composed about it, and penny broadsides on the contest produced.

The bout, described as the first international Championship in the history of the prize ring, was between John Carmel Heenan, an Irish American from California, and a gypsy named Tom Sayers, “Champion of England’‘.

Many of the British supporters of Sayers, and no less than 12,000 people attended the illegal bare-knuckle fist fight, looked upon it as a David versus Goliath battle, for Heenan was a heavyweight and Sayers only a middleweight.

Though proscribed by law and hounded by magistrates, the “Fancy’‘, the popular name given to prize-fighting, was favoured by royalty.

The site for the Championship of the World, heralded as the “greatest fight of all time’‘, was deliberately chosen: if there was trouble with the Hampshire police the contest could be moved over the river to Surrey where they had no jurisdiction.

Anticipation for the contest was so widespread even a folk song was composed...

“It was early in the morning before the cock did crow, Like tigers into battle these gallant lads did go.

The blood it flowed in torrents and never a blow was missed And they carried a bunch of thunderbolts well fastened in each fist.”

The South Eastern Railway Company, publicly disapproving of pugilism looked the other way in order large profits might be made, laid on two special trains from London which were packed out with fight enthusiasts who had been charged £3 return.

At around 7am, the passengers, excitedly looking forward to a fight which had been the talk of the country for three months and was a matter of national pride, jumped from the trains and ran the half mile along the grassy bank to the battle meadow where a multitude had already gathered.

Those keen to see, as well as call for blood where not to be disappointed, for this was a brutal affair. By 34th round, in a contest which lasted two hours and 20 minutes, Heenan was almost blind.

During the 38th round the police had managed to invade the site. Heenan, by now, could see so little he knocked out one of his seconds in mistake for Sayers. The Englishman wasn’t in good shape either: his right arm was broken.

By the time the police, faced with a hostile crowd, had ended the match, the ring, pitched in a hayfield at Farnborough Hill, was already half full of people and their numbers were finally swelled by the police.

It had been reported that the fight, declared a draw, lasted 44 rounds before it ended.

Sayers never fought again, and died five years later, following periods of ill health, and the golden age of prize fighting, it was said at the time, disappeared with his death.

Heenan who fled across the fields and collapsed in a coma, lost another fight the next year when he and his wife divorced.

She was even more famous that her husband. Adah Menken, known around the world as the “Naked Lady’‘ for her semi-nude appearances, had a silver mine named after her and counted Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, among her many lovers.

Meanwhile, after spending time touring with circuses, in which the six foot two inch, 14-stone, fighter demonstrated the art of self-defence, his career stumbled along with few successes.

In later life he could barely be persuaded to talk of his days in the ring and certainly not about the gruelling spring day in Hampshire when he failed to win the world champion’s belt.