Sister slugger

HER protector emerges from the house just as the white Ford hire car comes to a stop. Beau Williford has all the appearances of a guy who fought his first amateur bout as a six year old and went on to fight 43 times as a professional. His university education is none too apparent. He bears the classic symbol of a pugilist, a crooked nose, and is some 30 or 40 pounds heavier than he was in his own fighting days. His handshake is bone crushingly strong, his smile welcoming, his gaze all consuming.

The drive from New Orleans through the state capital of Baton Rouge to the town of Lafayette is along Interstate to, an expressway which bisects the swamps and flatlands of Louisiana. The Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers dominate this region of the Pelican State, but there is neither sight nor sound of the alligator - its most famous emblem - which, at this crossover of winter and spring, remains very much in hibernation, apart from the lifeless rubber imitations used by cajun boatmen to fool gullible tourists.

Coach Williford's directions were of the cloak and dagger variety.

"Take Interstate 10 until you come to Lafayette. Don't take the first exit, go on another two and exit right at Ambassador Cafferry, go on to the stop light, then turn over the Interstate overpass. Go on another two miles and stop at the first telephone. Call me."

The first visible public telephone is outside a Conoco gas station where the woman behind the coffee counter explains her grandmother came from Ireland and that her husband's Irish, too, name of Guckeen. She spells it out: "G-U-C-K-E-E-N".

"He's in the navy," she adds, "works on submarines."

The second phone call to the coach who has guided many men, but not yet any woman, toe world boxing titles elicits further instructions. Okay, now take a right down Congress Street, go through two stop lights, and then take the first turn left on to Arnold Boulevard. I'm the third house on the right, with a silver Mercedes and a dark blue Suburban outside."

The Mere has temporarily vacated its allotted place, but otherwise the directions are spot on and a few moments later a giant of a man is emerging from a neat house, with the US flag proudly flying outside, in this leafy suburb of Lafayette, population 80,000.

Two of the town's most famous citizens are Irish Archbishop O'Donnell is a Dubliner, and Deirdre Gogarty was born in Drogheda, although she considers Dublin's Sandymount her home. The only reason Gogarty has wound up in Lafayette - a place where summer temperatures soar into the 100s, so high that even locals are inclined to think twice about going outside, and where allergies leave her with a constant sniffle - is because Beau Williford lives here.

He's a native of North Carolina - "God's country," he says - but Williford graduated from the local university in Lafayette, subsequently got married and is raising four school going children. He has also coached six fighters, including Glen McCrory, to world titles. Gogarty wants to extend that list, desires to be more famous than any of them.

DEIRDRE Gogarty always wanted to be a boxer. Seeing Barry McGuigan's exploits on television accentuated the hunger. When she was a kid, Gogarty stuffed a yellow sailor's wet suit with old clothes and put it inside her wardrobe; she used it as a secret, homemade punchbag. Her secret. When she started to go to the local Drogheda Boxing Club, her parents thought their daughter was going to watch her boyfriend training. In reality, she'd taken the first tentative steps towards her goal in life. Another secret.

She never had any interest in other sports, really. Her mother and three sisters were all handy hockey players. "I hated getting bangs on the shins and I saw numerous hockey players losing their front teeth. I didn't like the game," recalls Gogarty. She's aware of the ironies involved in pursuing her chosen profession, but says "nothing like that has ever happened me in boxing". Still, it was tough being a boxer and a girl, especially in Ireland, where female boxing is banned and the IABA have only recently made moves to investigate its possible introduction and the professional body has steadfastly refused advances from the Women's International Boxing Federation (WIBF).

When she moved to the St Saviour's club in Dublin, Gogarty at least got to spar with national men's champions and came under the guidance of Pat McCormack and Jimmy Halpin. "They did a terrific job on her," admits Williford, "gave her a really good schooling."

Her one and only fight in Ireland was on the undercard of a kickboxing tournament in Limerick, back in 1991. "I think they bent the rules a bit to have my fight included, but it was my debut and I still count it," says Gogarty. But she could see there was no future in Ireland as a female boxer. England beckoned and, ultimately, the United States.

In London, a fellow by the name of Pat Shower, a referee, who had met Williford at the Thomas Abeckett (sic) gym over a decade earlier, recognised she had talent. Shower told her about Williford, that he was the best.

Shower broke the ground with a phone call. Williford was aghast. He'd never coached a woman boxer in his life. "I can't help a woman boxer," said Williford. "She's good, really good," said Shower. Gogarty wrote a letter. A video ended up in Williford's office at the back of his house in Arnold Boulevard, Lafayette. He thought about tossing it in the bin but didn't. It cost him $120 to transfer it to the American system. He saw that Gogarty was, indeed, good.

Williford sits back in his well worn office chair and laughs. He is surrounded by old posters of great fights. Memories of the past. A Tuesday 18th, June, 1963, poster bears the names of Cassius Clay and Henry Cooper at the Empire Stadium, Wembley. Entry prices range from 1216 to £6. Another poster, frayed at the edges, recalls the renamed Muhammad Ali's encounter with Brian London at Earls Court on Saturday 6th August 1966. Photos of Glen McCrory and Dennis Andries are nailed to the wall. Copies of Ring, the bible of boxing, are lined up alongside a copy of McGuigan's The Untold Story on the bookshelf.

"I eventually relented, conceded that Deirdre could come over. I had no idea what her background was, whether she was rich or poor. I just said she'd have to fend for herself. She said fine. But it really pissed me off when she flew into New Orleans rather than the local airport and I had to make a journey of over 120 miles to collect her," he recalls.

Williford didn't know that Deirdre Gogarty came from an academic background. Her father is an oral surgeon, her mother a dentist. Soon after her arrival in Lafayette, Deirdre - herself a graphic artist who worked on the Ninja Turtles animated film while in Dublin and who has received numerous offers from Disney and Californian based studios since moving Stateside - visited a dentist.

"Gogarty? Unusual name. Would you believe when I was in dental school I had to study a guy by that name?"

"My dad," said Deirdre, whose father had invented see through braces and perfected the operation on the hare lip. The dentist refused to take any payment.

The day after her arrival on Louisiana soil. Gogarty made her first visit to Williford's gym for a work out. She wanted to spar, too. Williford told, her not to worry, to sleep and rest. Sparring could wait for another day. She insisted. Eventually, she got into the ring with a boxer called Kenny Vice, who once upon, a time had knocked out Jim McDonald. Williford told Vice not to hurt her. Gogarty gave Vice a black eye.

Other welcomes weren't so kind. Ray Ryan, a kid who had won the state's golden gloves, was next up. Again, Williford told the sparring partner not to take liberties. But he did. Williford thought that would be it, that Gogarty would jump on the first flight home. Instead, after showering, Gogarty called her new coach over. "I'd really like to spar with him again," the coach was told.

A few days later, Ryan and Gogarty climbed into the same ring again. Williford laughs: "Deirdre beat him from pillar to post, beat his ass like he owed her money. We didn't see him anywhere near the gym for two years, but he can even make a joke about it now."

Then there was another young boxer, a Jewish kid who told her she was an "alien", that she'd never amount to anything. Now, he worships the ground she walks on.

Gogarty finds it harder to forgive. "I've always got inspiration from myself. It got under my skin when people said I couldn't box. I wanted to make them eat their words and I'm angry, too, that I'm not allowed box in Ireland. When people hear here that I can't fight in my own country, they ask what sort of place do you come from?'."

For her first three years in Lafayette, she couldn't afford a car. So she cycled everywhere. In an American society where the car is a god, it was taken as another sign of determination. Williford has been around a long time, but he shows no hesitation in observing: "I've never had a fighter who worked as hard, and that's no bullshit. She's never complained, snivelled or whined all the time I've known her. Deirdre is unbelievable, I get more amazed with her every day. She's become a real friend of the family. Everybody around here loves her."

Christy Martin can earn $100,000 a fight. She's the big name in women's professional boxing. The women's game differs minutely from the male version: rounds last two minutes instead of three, protagonists must wear breast protectors, and there are compulsory pregnancy tests before a bout.

When Deirdre Gogarty fought Martin last year, the American ended up with a broken nose and blood spilling on to her white vest. Martin still got the disputed verdict on points. Gogarty has never benefitted from a points win in the US yet. All her wins have been by knock out.

The 27 year old Irish fighter cut her teeth the hard way in America. There was the time boxer and coach spent 32 hours driving to a promotion in Jefferson City, Missouri. Another time Williford and Gogarty were involved in a wreck the day before a fight in Kansas City. "I was only doing 43 miles per hour, the cops measured the skid marks afterwards, in a four day old pick up and some kid pulled out in front of me and just froze, right in my path. I couldn't do anything," recalls Williford. "It didn't bother me I boxed the ears off my opponent in the fight," adds Gogarty.

Gogarty's profile has risen, and so has her purse. She can now command five figure sums, and the time is edging closer when she can become a full time professional fighter. She's appeared on Showtime, on the undercards of Mike Tyson and Wayne McCullough bouts, and HBO, while the prestige boxing magazine Ring Sports has named her best pound for pound woman fighter in the world, ahead of Martin.

Her last two fights have lasted a combined length of just 90 seconds. In one, she was recorded as landing 52 punches in one 37 second blitz. After her most recent fight with Debra Stroman, Don King sidled up to her, put his arms around her shoulder, and remarked: "I see big things for you in the future."

The future is closing in. On March 2nd, Gogarty fights Bonnie "Cobra" Canino in New Orleans for the World Super Featherweight crown (a bout postponed from January 21st) and the prophesised re match with Martin is one which has television fight moguls, eagerly rubbing their hands in anticipation.

Gogarty's in good shape, too. One observer of the game recently contacted Witliford to claim: "Deirdre has the best left hook in the business since Billy Conn (in the 40s)". A couple of weeks ago Eric Griffin, an American light flyweight who lost a disputed decision to a Spaniard in the 1992 Olympic Games final, lasted three rounds of a sparring session with Gogarty before insisting on getting out of the ring.

She doesn't like nicknames. The tags. Dirty D and Dangerous Deirdre have been discarded. For Deirdre Gogarty, plain Deirdre Gogarty from Lafayette via Dublin, Ireland, is sufficient.

Williford's modern gym on Katiste Saloom is called King of the Ring, but he may have to consider a name change to incorporate the new queen of world boxing, an Irish woman who can't box in her own, country.