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David Bentley has never been one to turn down a challenge, even if it is to his detriment. In 2008, on England duty, he got roped into playing what was meant to be a lighthearted game with Jimmy Bullard, shouting “Postman Pat” at Fabio Capello in training, on account of the manager’s likeness to the children’s character. Capello – perhaps unsurprisingly – did not see the funny side and Bentley never played for England again.
Bentley has always been audacious. When coming through at Arsenal, he accidentally sat in the seat of the club captain, Patrick Vieira, in the canteen. When the Frenchman tapped the then teenager on the shoulder, ordering him to vacate the seat in front of the rest of the squad, Bentley refused as a matter of principle. “I wasn’t going to let anyone mug me off,” Bentley says. “If I was on the street, no chance. I’m not moving. There’s a hierarchy but I don’t know, I’m not having that. But I can feel his hand on my shoulder now.” He spent the next three months getting kicked in training by Vieira and excluded from nights out with the team.
“I like to create chaos but I don’t like to be surrounded by it,” says Bentley, who retired from football aged 29 more than a decade ago but has again put himself in the firing line in signing up to a charity boxing match against the former Chelsea midfielder and coach Jody Morris, with the sold-out fight due to take place on Saturday in London.
It is a spectacle notable for its curiosity – nobody appears to have asked for this – and despite Bentley’s remarks to the contrary, an event featuring four other fights between former footballers on the undercard has a novel yet chaotic feel.
The former Sheffield United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny is not well enough to attend the media day but we are told he will recover to fight Curtis Davies. Leroy Lita, a black belt in taekwondo, is another press conference absentee because he is attending an unspecified course. Lita’s opponent, David Noble, is here but admits his ambition for the fight is “just to hear the last bell”. The Football League journeyman Greg Halford has been partnered with Marvin Elliott, and the Swansea City legend Lee Trundle – still playing semi-pro football in the Welsh leagues at 49 – will have the unenviable task of flooring the 6ft 5in, one-cap England defender Anthony Gardner.
Bentley v Morris is an intriguing and baffling match-up. The pair do not have any history, any beef – the pre-fight press conference is apparently only the second time they have met. “I didn’t know him from Adam,” says Morris. “He was a very good, technically gifted footballer. Yeah, I’m hoping his technical ability in the ring is not the same.”
They do not seem particularly well matched and appear to have been thrown together: Morris is squat and strong, a bundle of muscle standing at 5ft 5in, while Bentley is taller, leaner and five years younger at 41. “We’ve been sparring with Danny DeVito, actually,” jokes Bentley’s trainer, Kevin Mitchell, the renowned former British boxer.
Amid the pre-fight barbs, there is a serious undertone. Getting punched in the head is a serious business, even – and perhaps especially – at an amateur level. While all of the fighters should be praised for voluntarily putting their bodies on the line, free of charge, there is a question to be asked over whether getting whacked is the best way to raise money for charity, entertain punters or keep former professional footballers fit and busy in their retirement. A boxing fight has more at stake than, say, a marathon, where the principal danger for middle-aged men is wearing out their knees.
England Boxing, the governing body, confirmed to the Guardian that it had not been approached by the organisers and said in a statement: “White-collar and other forms of unregulated boxing do not fall under the remit of England Boxing. At present, white-collar boxing is typically organised by private promoters and not subject to the safety standards and oversight that govern amateur or professional boxing.”
It should be said that the fights – each three two-minute rounds – will be properly officiated, with medical personnel on hand, and the boxers have experienced coaches in their corner to protect them – Morris has been assigned the former IBF middleweight world champion Darren Barker. Not all white-collar boxing events can say the same.
The organiser, the former Arsenal and Barnet goalkeeper Graham Stack, has promised to raise £500,000 for the charities Playskill, Sport In Mind, the Willow Foundation and Helping Hands. That is not to be sniffed at, and considerable investment has been made in terms of sponsorship, ringside entertainment – James DeGale and George Groves will be present and Peter Crouch, Paul Merson and Ray Parlour will take part in a Q&A session between the bouts – and in the venue, the Grosvenor House hotel in Mayfair.
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Morris grew up a few miles away on the Cheesemans estate in West Kensington, and would walk to Stamford Bridge to play his first games for Chelsea in 1996. He was raised as a keen boxing fan: his uncle was an amateur fighter and his mother was keener on boxing than football.
Morris is sporting a black eye, evidence of his training. “I got a decent hiding in sparring,” he says. “I was just at a gym in Aldgate East and they got a Ukrainian kid in, a southpaw. I’m pleased to be out the other side of it, and not go down. This kid was punching miles harder than what Bentley is going to do.”
It’s slightly harder to discern why the impeccably groomed Bentley was drawn to this fight, given the former Tottenham and Blackburn winger is busy with his bars and businesses in Marbella, as well as a new gig on TalkSport. “I’ve got four children that I’m raising, they probably think I can’t fight,” Bentley says. “So it’s to showcase to them: ‘Look, you can do anything if you put your mind to it and you can step into the most uncomfortable situation.’ You have to have courage to even step into that ring, get your head whacked and take it. It won’t be the first time I’ve had a row, it’s just the first time that I’ve boxed.”
If Morris is the latest Bentley has squared up to, Thierry Henry was one of the first, the pair nearly coming to blows in Arsenal training, which was notoriously tough under Arsène Wenger. “Talk about physicality,” Bentley says. “I’ve come off black eyes, ripped shirts, bashed up. Even as a skinny lad, you’d have to defend yourself and have it. Wenger used to have competitive small-sided games, seven-sevens, 21 players. He used to keep the same teams all week. If you got beat the day before, you’d be fuming. You’re going home like you’ve just lost the World Cup final.
“Sure, Thierry is one of the best players to ever live, but he was mugging me off that day, trying to dictate the session. I’m getting the hump. I had a goal disallowed. He was trying to make up his own rules and it went off. I had gloves on, so I’ve whipped my gloves off. ‘Come on, then!’ It never came to blows, thank God, because Henry would have laid me out.”
Bentley will be hoping for a different result come Saturday night.
