Brick Top Polford, A Welsh Gangster

When I hear Welsh, the first thing that comes to mind is grape juice. The second thing, is that famous unlicensed boxing kingpin--Brick Top Polford . And so, I present to you an homage bent on exposing the life of the now-fallen Welsh gangster.

Born in 1934 to Maddox and Adara Polford, he was the identical twin of his brother, Clyde. He wouldn't earn his alias of Brick Top until his twenties; his birth name was actually Taffy.

Growing up in a rural slice of Powys, he would learn many things on his parents farm. In school he would easily excel in mathematics, especially accountancy, and showed an early penchant for gambling. He would be disciplined numerous times through out his years in school, arranging his first nearly successful booking operation around Tiddlywinks when he was only six.

As Taffy aged, he would soon find himself in a psychological quagmire of living with such an odd name. He was determined not to be the peculiar brother, and begun to rise in popularity after several stunts of questionable taste.

His parents would respond by foisting a larger workload upon him, and by the age of sixteen his sole responsibility was now to manage their pig livestock. His father believed that giving him greater culpability would eventually prove to temper his son's personality and lead him down a path to honoring and cherishing their family name.

Brick Top and his brother would one day become major rivals for the affection of Miss Barbra Covington, pitting the two in an escalating war of better flowers and sweeter poetry.

Flattered by such lavish attention, Miss Covington would time and time again find herself unable to choose who was her better suitor. The antagonism the two brothers shared for each other would continue to grow, until the completion of upper school was on the horizon.

Vying to be Barbra's date to the Llanafan Fawr Agricultural Show, his brother would blurt out "Do you really want to consort with a man named Taffy? " This would prove to be Clyde's undoing, as later that evening he would be lead on out to a barn and consequently killed in the ensuing fight.

Gravely shattered by the realization he had just killed his brother, Taffy would have to decide quickly on a recourse of action. Knowing that confessing would only make his life harder, he eventually hacked away at the body until it was in several pieces. To make sure the evidence would never be found, he stored it with the pig feed and began to add in a little bit of flesh every day until there was nothing left.

His brother would be listed as missing, but with little evidence or eyewitnesses to describe his final moments--or even the last few hours of his life--no would ever suspected foul play.

This gruesome act would only prove to embolden Taffy, who was now bent on fleeing Llanafan Fawr for the city life of London.

Unable to continue to pursue Miss Covington after murdering his brother, Taffy decided to strike out on his own after completion of his upper school education. He would move to London in 1952, where he would continually live on the edge of poverty.

Bouncing from job to job one employer at a local pub would note Taffy's excellent ability in keeping till. In desperate need for a someone with a good mind for numbers to keep track of off the book footy bets by a select group that frequented the tavern, he was offered the task for a fair cut of the profits.

Not one to spoil an opportunity, he took charge and was able to master the numbers. His eye for detail and cut throat approach would lend him more clientele until he found his pursuit of any other type of work superfluous.

Garnering greater respect, his reputation would lead him to the alias of Brick Top for his ability to never budge in any situation. By 1956 he owned and operated many of London's illegal book keeping practices and had successfully navigated the legal world to ensure that his business would not come to a halt any time soon. With revenue growing, he would begin to employ many interesting characters to help run his business and manage clients.

His army of thugs would only grow more ruthless as his success continued.

Ever the fiscally conscience, Brick Top would continue to make acquisitions he believed would help expand his empire. When a rash of boxing venues began to take off and show serious profits he decided to build his own.

This would prove to be a very wise move and it would later become one of the most lucrative aspects of his business. Itching to bolster his bottom line and ensure copious premiums, he would eventually turn to retaining a stable of fighters himself and endeavouring to fix matches. By allowing access to the knowledge of the winner in a fight to high rollers, Brick Top would ensure that he would only gain more word of mouth and a larger pool of betters.

While this type of behaviour is largely atypical for any unlicensed sport, the rigors of successfully pulling it off can sometimes be daunting. This, in it's self, would later prove to be his ruin.

One day Brick Top hears of a boxing promoter named Turkish, who trains an up-an-coming fighter named Gorgeous George. Approaching Turkish he explains that he wanted to do him a "favor" and use his man in a fight but he must go down in the fourth round.

Commanding so much power Turkish couldn't say no, but Gorgeous George would end up in the hospital two days before the match because of a nasty run in with a pikey named Mickey.

Brick Top was angered that they had lost their fighter, and even after replacing him with the pikey because it was the last minute all the bets in the upcoming match would have to be called off.

However, the fight still occurs with the pikey in Gorgeous George's place. After the bell rings for the first round Mickey quickly enters centre ring and only takes one punch to down Brick Top's fighter. Falling out of grace with many of his clients only serves to incur his wraith, and Brick Top proceeds to punish Turkish by paying him a visit and personally taking his savings by gun point.

He then explains to Turkish that he has set up a new bare knuckled boxing match and wishes to use Mickey again, but this time he had truly well better go down in the fourth. Turkish and his partner Tommy pay another visit to the pikey camp site to reason with Mickey and to get him into the next fight.

Mickey would agree under the stipulation that the two would buy his mother a new caravan as had been previously requested with the first fight, but now it would have to be top of the line. With all of Turkish's savings taken from him by Brick Top it was an impossible situation and when Brick Top learned about this he would decide to destroy Turkish's slot machine parlour and set the caravan of Mickey's mum on fire whilst she slept.

When Turkish and Tommy arrive again to appeal to Mickey in hope he would reconsider fighting, Mickey would agree to do it if only to ensure no one else got hurt. They would enter the fight again, the rules unchanged about having to go down in the fourth. However, to assure that it would run smoothly this time Brick Top orders some of his thugs to stake out the pikee camp site and await orders to kill them if the match is unsuccessful. Likewise, he brought plenty of ammunition to the boxing match and would await Turkish, Tommy, and Mickey if they failed him again.

Mickey at first appears to go along with his orders, not punching out his opponent and dancing around as he allowed himself to get pummelled. But as the fourth round opened up, Mickey struck down the fighter again with one hit.

Brick Top had lost all his patience for the three and went to make due on his promise, but when he calls his hit squad at the pikee camp site to order them to strike he only hears one single shot ring out. He then approaches his car and asks for his gun as Turkish, Tommy, and Mickey approach.

He would find behind the tinted glass of his car a pikey with a gun, and it would be the last thing he would see.