#108: ‘Going for Gold’ by Lisa Lintott

‘Going for Gold’ by Lisa Lintott is a play based on the remarkable and sad story of Frankie Lucas. The play is currently on at Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, London, until 30 November 2024. The play text is published by Salamander Street.

Born in St. Vincent, Lucas moved to Croydon, south London as a child where he began boxing for the Sir Phillip Game ABC. He enjoyed a great deal of success as an amateur, winning the national ABA middleweight title in 1972 and 1973. In what feels like an often repeated story on this blog, when talking about boxers from this era, Lucas’ amateur career was beset by political movings against him. He was first overlooked for international selection, with Alan Minter being favoured and representing Great Britain at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Even more disappointment followed when he was not selected to represent England for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, despite him beating the selected boxer Carl Speare in the 1973 ABA final.

With support from his amateur club Lucas eventually travelled to New Zealand (funded by efforts by friends and family), winning the first ever gold medal at the games for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Despite his success as an amateur these achievements didn’t translate in the way he had hoped when he turned professional with trainer George Francis, who at the time was going against the grain in British boxing, building a stable of Black British boxers and guiding the likes of John Conteh, Bunny Sterling and (latterly) Frank Bruno to titles.

Lucas’ story highlights just how hard it was for anyone to carve a successful boxing career in Britain without being aligned to the ‘right’ people. This along with struggling to be the father he wished to be to his young son, Michael, led to issues with his mental health, either caused by or exacerbated by his career-related disappointments. The sad truth of boxing in this period is that it often reflected the narrow-minded attitudes of British society, with this showing itself as overt racism at many of Lucas’ amateur and professional bouts. Lintott does well in the production to hold a light to this ugly truth.

Lucas’s career aside, the music in this production is fantastic, and I also felt the production team dealt very well with the live action representations of boxing, which are never easy to portray on stage. Coincidentally, this is only the second time I’ve been to Park Theatre, the first time being for another boxing-related play – ‘On the Ropes’, the story of Vernon Vanriel.