Everyone held their breath. It was a moment in time, one that one man will never forget.
Bob Gibson has lived five years in Wanganui now, leaving Auckland because he was looking for a place with cheaper real estate.
He's a boxing judge in his spare time, a career that's going to
reach a high next Wednesday when he's one of three judges in an International Boxing Federation world championship flyweight fight in Sydney.
That's between Armenian Aussie Pic Darchinyan and Columbia's Jair Jiminez, ninth-ranked in the division. It's a big fight for a Kiwi judge, and there's a fair chance Gibson might be whistling a bit of Irish folk song "Danny Boy" under his breath.
Why? Go back 15 years, and hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand, are around an Auckland boxing ring, awaiting a medal ceremony during the 1990 Commonwealth Games. The winner is Irishman Wayne McCullough ? who later went on to become world champion.
Everybody's waiting. But the man with the tape recorder isn't at all happy. It won't work.
"I was doing all the anthems with the tape recorder. And of course, when McCullough came up for his medal, I said to myself, 'Danny Boy, right.'
"But nothing happened. All the crowd at the back starting calling, 'what's going on?..'
"The guy who was co-ordinating everything was going crook, I switched it off and on, and nothing happened. He said, ' what are we going to do,' and I said ? 'I don't know, I think I've got a bum tape.
"But then I looked at the kid, and thought, 'he's not getting out of the ring without Danny Boy,' said 'give me the tape, I'll sing the bastard???.and that went over threequarters of the globe."
That ended up being one heck of a night, says Gibson, proud that McCullough still keeps in touch with him ? and has asked him for a quote on the occasion to put in the book he's writing.
Gibson was sponsored on a full trip of Ireland just three months after that event, appearing on television shows and meeting the heirachy, and basically being treated like a king. He says he loved it ? and he's going about next week's fight the same way.
